


The Innocents - Book I

by malfunkshon



Category: Chicago Fire, Hanson, House M.D., Jesse Spencer - Fandom, Placebo
Genre: AO3 1 Million, Alternate Universe, Cults, Dystopia, Fictional Religion & Theology, M/M, Male Slash, Political Campaigns, RPF, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-06
Updated: 2014-04-23
Packaged: 2018-01-11 06:41:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 93,974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1169887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/malfunkshon/pseuds/malfunkshon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Isaac, Taylor and Zac have been brought up within The Flock - a secretive cult based in an isolated location known as The Compound.  Now that Zac’s life is at serious risk from medical neglect and from the cult’s controversial approach to psychiatric treatment, the time has come for Isaac and Taylor to rescue their younger brother from the Detox Center and to escape the isolation of The Compound to rejoin the world of the Outsiders. But how will they adapt to the outside world - a world according to which they don't even exist?</p><p>Winner of the 2013 Blank Page Awards in the following categories:</p><p>Best A/U -1st place<br/>Best Sci-Fi/Fantasy- 1st Place<br/>Best Crossover- 1st Place<br/>Best Isaac - 1st Place<br/>Best Taylor - 1st Place<br/>Best Zac - 2nd Place<br/>Best Overall Story - 1st Place</p><p>Please download the compendium to The Innocents - 'The Flock for Dummies' guide for anything cult-related. The guide is constantly updated as new content is added to the story. </p><p>http://www.mediafire.com/view/u8df21cj4ai791d/The_Flock_For_Dummies.pdf</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Darkness

**Author's Note:**

> DISCLAIMER: None of this is true. This is a work of fiction. FICTION. The characters in this story have nothing to do with their real life counterparts. Okay? Good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> POV - Zac  
> Chapter Word Count - 1347

I was used to the darkness. It made time stretch into a shapeless trail of indistinguishable moments.

I knew if it was day or night from the little light that filtered through the window above my head, projecting strange shapes on the dark screen that had fallen over my eyes. I calculated the time of day from the noises outside and from my routine - the routine I had been forced to adopt for weeks, or maybe months, I didn’t know anymore. As every day blended seamlessly into the next, I stopped looking for indicators of my old reality. I stopped caring. And clearly everybody else did, too. Lying flat on my back on the lumpy mattress, I could only pretend to stare at the pattern of a ceiling that I couldn’t see and at walls I couldn’t touch, to take my mind away from the cold wetness of my underwear and of the bedding I was lying on. Nobody had come to take me to the bathroom since bedtime over twelve hours before, and I couldn’t hold it in any longer. A few seconds of relief had therefore resulted in hours of discomfort. I was desensitised to the humiliation of being reduced to wetting myself, but lying in the cold, wet sheet soaked in my own piss made it impossible to switch off and go to the happy place in my mind. I wasn’t even so sure if such a happy place existed, anymore.

I tugged at the four-point restraints that had me strapped to the bed by my wrists and ankles - I tugged again and again, although I knew damn well that I didn’t have the strength to break out of those leather belts. Even way back then, back when I was strong and still felt like a human being they would have been too tight. Now it was downright impossible, after my insides had been turned inside out by all the cleansing, and the enemas, not to mention the diarrhea I had pretty much constantly in the first few weeks. After that, I never felt like myself again; suddenly I was weak, and they made sure that I stayed that way. Still, my body occasionally refused to accept its state of forced immobilization and I would twist my wrists against the leather straps, rubbing the skin raw until I’d feel the damp, stinging stickiness of blood, bringing a couple of seconds of stillness, and blissful calm.

But nothing was relieving my agitation that morning. Or was it afternoon? I knew that it was going to be one of those unbearable, endless days the thought of which brought that familiar feeling of sheer panic that rose in my chest and constricted my throat, and had me gasp for breath. I willed myself to focus on my breathing but it was hard. Exhale, inhale. Exhale, inhale _Breathe deeply_ , I repeated silently to myself, like those kind of prayers calle _mantras_ hat I had once read about in a handout about the religious beliefs of the Outsiders. It was study material for the Upper Levels and had been accidentally left on the desk of one of the Upper Ranks Officers that I was working for. I’d managed to tuck it under the button-down jacket of my uniform and sneak it out of his office. I remember the fear of getting caught reading forbidden material that night in my bunk, the stapled pages tucked inside the leather-bound copy of _The Shepherd’s Journey_ that I was pretending to study; but I also remember the exhilaration of learning something about the Outsiders. The handout said that in some Outsiders’ religions, people would chant these mantras over and over again to make themselves feel closer to God. I knew, as I exhaled and inhaled more steadily now, that what I was doing would probably put another thousand years between me and ‘Pure’, but it was helping. _Breathe_ , I was now whispering to myself, _breathe_. The invisible hand grasping my chest and squeezing my lungs was letting go, and I was once again a limp body on a wet old mattress. Tears started to roll down the sides of my eyes, warm and tickly on my skin. I needed to blow my nose. A rivet of snot trickled down onto my mouth and towards my chin where I knew it would end up glued to the hairs that were growing back on my face - nobody had given me a shave for days; where was everyone? I blinked once or twice, to free my eyelids from another build up of tears, and as the tears flowed down my temples and into my ears, they made the sound of water, and in my darkness I saw rivulets of rain, and streams, and rivers. I saw the beds of creeks and runnels dug deep into the soil; I saw canyons. I saw my tears eroding my skin. I saw lines and snakelike shapes forever engrained on my face, like scars, indelible, like tattooed mementos of my pain.

Why was nobody coming today? I wasn’t sure of what time it was exactly, but it must have been quite late if my bladder had reached bursting point, forcing me to abandon any pretense of dignity. They would normally come in the morning. By now, it was probably early afternoon, especially judging by the growling coming from my empty stomach. I hadn’t had anything to eat since lunchtime the day before. I wasn’t allowed any solid food in the evening; instead, the attendant would hand me a tall glass of a bitter, foul-smelling juice, but not before I’d hear him tear open a packet of something which he would pour into the liquid. He would stir it a couple of times and then I’d have to drink it quickly, and let the attendant strap me back down to the bed for the night. Sometimes I would feel so waterlogged that the stuff would come back up in my throat and I thought I would drown. By mornings, I’d be bursting for the bathroom. Why had nobody come yet?

Maybe they’d all gone. I couldn’t hear any noises coming from the corridor, although I was pretty sure that there were no other patients in the ward apart from me - I’d never hear any doors slamming from the other cells, or the attendant’s trolley stopping anywhere else apart from outside my room. Maybe something had happened. Maybe The Shepherd had returned, and the Flock was gathering to leave? Were they going to leave me behind? I’d failed my intermediate levels and was nowhere near Purity; so why would they come back and get me if I was unworthy, anyway? I was going to be left there in my tiny cell while they marched alongside The Shepherd to their salvation. I felt a sudden wave of terror clasping my lungs again, and whatever was left in my stomach rose upwards, up, up into my throat. I pointlessly tugged at the restraints as I broke into a sob half-choked by the burning liquid that was making me gag and by the snot that had built up in my congested nostrils; I started to feel dizzy. This is it, I thought, _I am going to die of suffocation from my own vomit and snot and they say just before you die you feel this sense of peace but I’m so fucking scared._ My heart was thumping in my ears and I willed myself to focus on its relentless, hypnotic drumming to take my mind away from what was coming, listening, every beat louder and louder, and then I thought that the sound of my pulse had left my body and was coming at me from far away, like the blood flowing back into my veins, flooding in from the corridor behind the locked door, lub-dub, lub-dub, LUB-DUB _LUB-DUB_ until it turned into the sound of hurried steps getting closer and closer and then stopping and then the jangling of keys and a clunk from the door and -

\- then I heard Taylor’s voice.


	2. From Despair to Where?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> POV: Taylor, Isaac  
> Chapter Word Count - 5927

I fumbled with the heavy bunch of keys, frantically trying to pick the one Layne had marked with a blue round sticky label. My hands were shaking so much that it was proving quite difficult, and the key kept slipping from my clammy fingers. A wave of dizziness came over me, and I realized I had been holding my breath; I closed my eyes for a moment and inhaled deeply _Just focus_ , I told myself, as I finally steadied my thumb and index finger around the key. Looking at my reddened and peeled knuckles I felt a pang of guilt deep in the pit of my stomach. But I knew that the only way Layne could get away with helping us was to look as if he’d done exactly the opposite.

We’d agreed that I’d make it look like I’d hurt him, then I’d tie his hands and lock him in the medical supplies store room; we’d have about an hour before shift changeover, when the evening nurse would find Layne and inevitably raise the alarm.

Hopefully they’d buy his story - with curly blond, almost white hair and big blue, child-like eyes, he looked like one of those wraith-like creatures I’d seen in pictures of Outsiders paintings - angels? It wasn’t too far fetched to think that I could overpower someone like him. And anyway, that plan was the best we’d been able to come up with. If either of us got caught, the repercussions would be too serious to even contemplate; almost certainly we would be struck off as Established Enemies and our families forbidden from contacting us ever again. There was no margin of error - it _had to_ work. I only wished Layne would think of himself, too. He was a good friend and someone I could trust - a rarity within the Compound.

“Come with us, Layne”, I pleaded, although I already knew the answer. We’d gone through this before.

“And never see Lucy ever again? My daughter needs her father, Tay. And her mother is knee-deep into this bullshit and will never leave. You know that”.

I did know. Layne’s wife was one of the most ambitious Processing Officers in the Compound. It had taken her only two years to get to Processing Level 6. The average time for most people was four. There was no way she was going to leave The Flock anytime soon. I looked up and into Layne’s eyes and saw quiet resignation, and a courage than put me to shame _This is going to be harder than I thought._

Seeing my hesitation, Layne put both hands on my shoulders, and spoke slowly, leaving no doubt as to who was in charge.

“You guys…just get your brother out of this place, and get as far away from here as you possibly can. Can you promise me you’ll do that, Tay?”.

I imagined him speaking to his patients in that tone and suddenly I could see why he had decided to train as a psychiatric nurse, in his previous life outside the Compound.

“Promise?” Layne said expectantly, his raised eyebrows demanding a response from me.

I nodded.

And then I hit him.

I snapped out of my thoughts and turned the key into the lock; it took three turns before I heard the mechanism inside click open. The door felt heavy, as I pulled the handle towards me. I’d barely stepped inside the room when the sharp smell of urine hit me and made my eyes water. And that’s when I saw Zac, supine on the bed, struggling to raise his head while the rest of him was lying completely flat. It took me a few seconds to realize that he was strapped down to the bed frame. Checking that there really was no-one behind me first, I whispered his name.

“Zac...”

“T-tay?” The croaky, congested sound that came from the bed didn’t even sound like my brother’s voice anymore.

“Yes, buddy, it’s me” I said as quietly as I could while I pulled the door shut behind me. “I’ve come to get you out of here”. I stepped towards his bed, struggling to take in the scene of squalor before my eyes.

“Tay?”

He asked again, straining his neck towards me, his body pinned down to the bed.

I took a breath in and sat down on the bed beside him, and put a hand on his cheek.

“I’m here baby. I’m here now.” I tried to reassure him, stroking his brown hair, which looked a lot longer than I remembered, and felt damp and greasy to touch.

And then I guess months of being stuck in a nightmare came crashing down on my baby brother, and he broke down, his sobs almost deafening against the tomb-like silence of the corridor outside. “Shhh, Zac” - I said, but it was no use. His body was fighting the restraints, fingers fluttering as if to reach out for my hands, eyes darting left and right, scanning the darkness, looking for me. Pupils dilated like black holes. Unable to stand his distress any longer, I leaned over, and kissed him, holding his wet, sticky face between my hands, and we were finally close, after all that time. A flicker of revulsion at the awful smell of his breath must have passed across my face, and I was thankful that he couldn’t see it. He smelled terrible all over - a wretched combination of sweat, urine and neglect.

I pulled away from the kiss, despite Zac’s chapped lips trying to hang on to mine, hungry and desperate for contact; but I was conscious that we had to hurry. I set out to undo the straps on his wrists; each restraint was made of four individual leather fastenings that been secured really tightly. As I undid each strap, Zac winced in pain as the air movement disturbed his raw, broken skin. One restraint came off; I moved on to the other, which revealed equally severe wounds. I bit my lip and closed my eyes for a split second to gather myself, unprepared for the sight of my brother’s bleeding wrists; where the restraints had been, strips of skin had been scraped off, exposing raw flesh, sticky where blood had partially coagulated, but still wet from a fresh pinky fluid oozing through. The skin all around was angry and red, and pus was beginning to form in the folds of the cuts. The pain must have been excruciating, because all the while I was freeing my brother from the straps, he was sobbing and gasping for air through his mouth. It was breaking my heart but I had to keep going.

“Shhhhh” I leaned over him , sliding a hand behind his head, stroking the damp, stringy hair with the other. “Shhhhh”.

“Tay” he repeated, but this time more quietly, his sobs subsiding a bit. “I thought nobody would come. I thought I….” - he was interrupted by another deep sob, prompting another rivulet of snot to run down down towards lips. I wiped his mouth with my sleeve and then brushed the hair from his forehead, stroking him gently. Speaking to him as calmly as I could in the circumstances, I tried to reassure him:

“Listen, Zac, you’ve got to stay calm for me, alright? I’m going to undo the straps on your feet now and then you’re going to do exactly as I say. Ike’s waiting for us outside but we don’t have much time. Ok?”

I saw his chest rise in an effort to take a deep breath and calm himself down. He steadied his big, black pupils to a point remarkably close to my eyes and whispered “Ok”.

I quickly moved to work on the restraints on his ankles. As I reached across the bed, I noticed a large, yellowing stain on the sheet that lay over Zac’s lower body _Of course, that smell_. My baby brother had actually been left to lie in his own piss. A lump rose in my throat as I lifted a corner of the sheet in disbelief, only to see several different halos of dried-up urine in varying shades of fading yellow, spreading out from underneath him. _Zac. I’ve got to get you out here._ Fighting tears, I blinked, and told myself to focus on freeing his ankles, which were in pretty much the same condition as his wrists. The last restraint came off, and Zac groaned as he slowly curled his legs to his knees. Rolling to one side, he clutched them to his chest, like an unborn baby. Panting slightly, he shut his eyes, adjusting to his new freedom of movement. I could hardly imagine the pain he must be in after being forced to lie in the same position for all those hours, but he'd have to put up with it for a little while longer.

“Zac” I said as gently and as firmly as I could - “Can you sit up for me? We’ve got to go. Ike will start worrying that something’s gone wrong.”

Opening his eyes again, Zac nodded slowly and, pushing his weight on one arm, slowly sat up on the bed. I opened the canvas bag that I was carrying across my chest and took out a pair of dark blue sweatpants, a hooded top and a pair of sneakers, glad that I’d had the foresight to pack something clean for him. Trying to break out of the Detox Centre was hard enough but being seen walking outside in broad daylight with one of the patients, barefoot and in piss-stained pyjamas, was a guarantee to EE status.

I helped Zac out of the pyjamas and into the clean sweatpants.

“Let’s put some shoes on you, shall we?”

As I I knelt on the floor I silently cursed myself: I’d forgotten to pack a pair of socks and the wounds around Zac’s ankles were going to rub against the shoes and the fabric of the sweatpants. I needed him to be able to walk.

“Just give me a second” I said, and I quickly untied my shoes and took off my socks. I then unrolled them back on Zac’s feet and over the sore skin around his ankles. The pain made him gasp sharply.

“Easy, easy, buddy. I’m sorry. I know it hurts”.

I picked up his feet as gently as I could and guided them into the sneakers.

As I was putting my own shoes back on, I realized that I had also neglected to bring him a clean t-shirt, and that the one he was wearing was absolutely filthy; without a second thought, I removed the bag that was strapped across my chest and took off my denim jacket. Underneath I was wearing a thin checkered shirt and under that, a white t-shirt. I unbuttoned my shirt and pulled my t-shirt off; then, I grabbed the bottom of the filthy top that Zac was wearing and lifted it above his head.

“Lift your arms up for me, buddy” I said, guiding the greasy fabric upwards.

“It hurts to move my arms” - his voice was whiny, but he did as I asked.

 _I hurt too,_ thought. Though I didn’t say it.

“I know buddy, I know. Now put this on for me”

I helped him put his arms though the sleeves and pulled the t-shirt over his head, looking at his protruding ribcage, trying hard not to think that, only a few months ago, my little brother, who was naturally stockier and more muscular than me, would never have fit into my clothes. I quickly put my shirt and my jacket back on and slung the strap of my bag across my chest.

“Ready now, Zac?” I looked up at him as I zipped him up, smoothing the fabric of the hoodie I had just helped him into.

He mouthed a mute _yes_.

I combed my fingers through his hair, managing to untangle only the loosest knots _This will have to do_ I decided.

Big, brown eyes searched for mine in the indistinct shape that was my face, and found them. I knew that his eyes couldn’t see me, but in that moment, I was sure that his heart did.

“Where are we going, Tay?”

“Out of here buddy. We’re getting out of here.”

“But where to? They’ll come and find us if we go home.”

“We’re not going home, Zac. We’re leaving. We’re leaving the Compound.”

Zac’s eyes widened and he took a sharp intake of breath. His fear at the enormity of what I’d just said was palpable. But there really was no time to explain.

“Do you trust me?” I asked him, squeezing his hand gently.

“Yeah…?” His voice was barely a croak.

“Well, then.”

Zac’s eyelids closed shut for a second, as he took a slow, deep breath. Then they opened.

“I’m ready”.

\----------------------------------------------------------------

They were takin _forever_. I glanced at my watch and it was already 3:15 - the delivery truck normally passed through the gate at 3:45. We needed time to cross to the other side of the Compound, with a blind, probably very confused brother in to _and_ ithout trying to look too conspicuous. My heart was racing and I noticed the usual, unwelcome reaction I always got when I was nervous - like something gripping my bowels, making me want to rush to the nearest bathroom. Which, of course, I couldn’t do. I wished I could have a smoke - I had a whole packet stashed away, a present from Tigg - but lighting up would have been a fool-proof guarantee to have a Discipline Officer swoop down on me in a matter of minutes. And anyway, considering the precarious state of my stomach, smoking would only have made things worse.

A group of Processing candidates, with their books and folders diligently tucked under their arms, crossed the road perpendicular to the alley where I was standing and their chattering snapped me out of my bowel-related woes. The aquamarine shade of their uniforms had probably been carefully chosen to inspire new recruits with renewed hope of salvation. I remembered feeling that way, at the beginning; walking out of the Processing Center after passing Foundation Level and, for days afterwards, living on an exhilarating feeling that everything was possible. Most of the new recruits looked roughly my age and that of my brothers: young men and women in their mid-20s and early 30s, experienced enough to have some of the practical skills so in demand within the Compound, but who were already harbouring enough disillusionment with life to want to turn their backs to what they knew, and choose to walk in the way of The Shepherd instead.

My eyes followed the candidates until they walked past the Detox Center and disappeared from view, strands of their conversations still carried in the mild afternoon air for a little while longer _Purity,_ _liberation,_ _emancipation from compulsion_ , _reconstruction of the immortal soul_ ; what did all those words mean to me now? More importantly, what would they mean soon, in the world of the Outsiders, assuming that the plan worked in the first place?

Footsteps alerted me that someone was coming from the the other side of the row of dumpsters I had been hiding behind. I peered through a gap between two containers and saw them, walking towards me, crossing the Detox Center’s rear courtyard. Taylor leading Zac forward, a hand on our little brother’s lower back, subtly guiding him. I saw Taylor’s lips imperceptibly mouthing some words as they approached, and I knew that he was giving Zac directions. A couple more steps and they turned the corner around the dumpsters barrier and walked towards the end of the alleyway where I had been waiting for them for what, at that point, felt like an eternity. To say that I was shocked at Zac’s appearance would be a massive understatement. The scrawny, dishevelled mess that was hobbling towards me almost bore no resemblance to the strong, muscular young man that my little brother had grown up to be. He’d turned from spotty teenager to a man seemingly overnight, something that gave him plenty of opportunities to remind us that he was now the strong one who could beat the crap out of me and Taylor. But not anymore. The thin, frail kid in baggy sweatpants who was now only a couple of steps away was not my brother. It was the ghost of him.

Taylor must have seen the look on my face, gawping at Zac in disbelief, and interrupted the uncomfortable silence.

“I’m sorry it took so long. I had to be creative in the wardrobe department”, he said, pointing at his own shoes; I was sure that earlier he’d been wearing socks. I looked down at his feet, then at Zac’s. _Aaah_. I didn’t know whether to be annoyed at Taylor for forgetting to pack something so essential, or to be grateful for a brother who would have even taken his own shoes off and gone barefoot to give them to us, if we’d needed them. I opted for the latter.

“Hey little bro”, I tried to sound as upbeat as I could, relieved that Zac couldn’t see the concerned expression on my face.

“Ike?”

He reached for me with an outstretched hand. I offered my arm for him to grab hold of, all the while aware that, despite the relative obscurity provided by the dumpsters, we could have been seen at any time. At least there were no security cameras at the back of the Detox Center, presumably because nobody had been stupid enough to try to escape. And anyway, it wasn’t a prison, well, not _officially_.

Zac’s eyes were searching for me left and right, squinting from the light that was still penetrating his corneas, and that he was obviously no longer accustomed to. My heart ached at the depressing reminder that my little brother had lost his sight at such a young age - he was 27 years old, and had been almost completely blind for almost two years.

“Zac, we’re going to get out on the Outside and get you some help. There’s no time to explain but you’re going to have to do as we say, and let me and Tay do the talking. Ok?”

“But…what are we going to do….where will we go….Outside?” - his lips were trembling as he asked.

“There’s a farm where Tay and I can get work as laborers… a first. Then - “ Taylor glared at me, shaking his head. I stopped and said instead “…then we’ll try and get a doctor who can make you better”. Maybe this wasn’t the time to explain that we wanted to try and fin _our_ father. Zac was only 3 years old when our mother joined The Flock and disconnected from our dad. I barely remembered him myself.

“I thought I’d never see you two again”. His voice cracked when he caught the contradiction in his statement. In that respect, he probably never _was_ going to _see_ us again.

“Now don’t say things like that, buddy” - said Taylor, softly, rubbing the back of Zac’s neck.

“You didn’t think that we were going to leave you there, right? You don’t get rid of us so easily, Zaccy” . I tried to joke but my own voice was cracking now. I wasn’t very good at hiding emotions. That was part of the reason why I hadn’t progressed very far in my processing levels: I couldn’t master the art of looking blank and detached _“You must learn to filter more”_ my Processing Officer had said many, many times. _"Purity can only be attained if you have filtered your human essence"_ she’d said, as if I didn’t know and as if I hadn’t been trying since the day I was first made to attend a session.

Right now, though, I was looking at the pitiful sight of my little brother in mismatched clothes, frightened, hanging on to my jacket sleeve like a newborn baby gripping its mother’s finger, and I could have done with being able to _filter more_. All I wanted to do was to throw my arms around Zac’s bony frame and hold him close. I wished I could tell him that everything was going to be ok, that _I_ would save him. That it had all bee _my_ idea. But, of course, it was never going to be anyone other than Taylor, sneaking his way into the Detox Center, sweet talking a member of staff, then keeping Zac calm enough to get him out without looking too much like a patient on the run. And, of course, someone had to figure out the logistics of our escape and _that_ was certainly something best left to me. I glanced at my watch once again. Time to get going.

“You got everything?” Taylor asked, casting a look towards my tool bag. His hand was still resting on Zac’s back.

“Everything that I could fit”.

Inside my tool bag I’d managed to stash a duffel bag with a few essential supplies for our journey, but I was under no illusion that we were remotely prepared. We were going to get on the road with the clothes we had on and little else, and only enough food for a couple of days, if we rationed. I’d rolled up one fleecy, lightweight blanket into a tight bundle, hoping that it wouldn’t be too cold at the farm - I wasn’t exactly sure of where it was, but Tigg had said that it was south of here. Back at the residence I’d felt confident that what I’d packed was going to see us through until we got there, but now, running through the inventory of my bag through my mind one last time, I wasn’t so sure anymore. The deep, ominous feeling in my gut returned. I looked at my watch, to distract myself more than anything - I had been checking the time every minute for the past half hour anyway, so I knew that it was time to make a move.

“We have to be at the West Gate in fifteen minutes. Do you think you can do that, Zac?’

That had come out more patronising that I had meant to, but I wanted to let Zac know what we were doing without giving him too much detail and have him freak out in a panic in the middle of the Compound.

Zac took a deep breath, clearly psyching himself up for whatever he thought was coming.

“Hu-huh.”

“Let’s go then” said Taylor, turning towards the opposite end of the alleyway. It was our route back onto the main road that cut across the Compound, joining the east and west quadrants together and leading straight to the secondary gate that was used for all service access and deliveries. The gate that we were headed for.

“Tay?” Zac’s voice was barely audible.

“What is it, buddy?”

Taylor turned round again, placing an arm across Zac’s shoulders, and leaning his head close enough so that he could speak straight into his ear. It was a small, automatic gesture done without thinking, the way he always did when he talked to our younger brother, laden with complicity and a tenderness that inevitably tore me up inside and made me desperately want to be included.

“I’m really thirsty.”

“Oh shit, of course buddy, you’ve been tied up for all those hours… let me get you some water…”

I rolled my eyes and gave my older brother a scalding look. I couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought of doing that before leaving the Detox Center. Any form of eating and drinking in public places, outside of designated areas, like the staff mess, was grounds for a visit to the Disciplinary Officer. Taylor shot me an apologetic glance as he rummaged through his canvas bag until he extracted a bottle of water. He unscrewed the cap and handed it to Zac, not letting go of it completely, a wise decision considering our brother’s unsteady grip as he took the bottle to his mouth with both hands and glugged almost half of it down before catching his breath again. His chest was heaving as he paused a couple of seconds and closed his eyes, still holding on to the bottle. Before Taylor could take it away from him and put it back in the bag, Zac was taking another long swig, not quite centering his mouth completely so that some water was dribbling down his chin and clinging to the hairs of his unshaven skin. Good thing I’d packed another couple of bottles, I thought. When Zac was finally done drinking up a third of our drinking rations for the journey, and after Taylor had dried our brother’s mouth with his jacket sleeve, I slung the strap of my tool bag on my shoulder and gave it a couple of pats. Everything was in there. With Taylor holding Zac’s forearm to lead his way, we started to make our way towards the West Gate.

At a normal pace, the walk from the Detox Center to the West Gate usually took less than ten minutes, cutting straight across from the upper eastern quadrant of the Compound, right through the main artery that connected the residential units to the north and the front gate at the opposite end. The problem was that Zac could barely walk and we were having to walk three abreast, with Taylor and I on either sides, to try to hide Taylor’s hand practically pushing our youngest brother along. After what seemed like an eternity, we finally made it to the intersection between the north artery and the East-West corridor, when Zac suddenly stopped. Trying to stifle my frustration, I said:

“Come on Zac, man, we’ve gotta keep going. It’s not far to go”.

“I’m feeling dizzy, Ike” he apologised, sounding on the verge of tears.

“I know buddy, but…”

All of a sudden, Taylor dropped to one knee, pretending to tie his shoe. Fiddling with the laces, he glanced up at me:

“Let’s just give him a couple of seconds, alright?”

But all I could say was -

“O _shit_.”

“What?” Taylor was now pretending to tie his other shoe.

“Patrol” I replied, looking ahead, as if focusing on nothing in particular.

“Just what we needed” said Taylor, sighing.

Two Discipline Officers, one male and one female, were walking right towards us, their maroon uniforms a giveaway of their status. Taylor stood up.

“It’s going to look worse if we just stand here ”. He turned his head towards Zac slightly. “Hold on to my bag” he added, switching it to the other side, pushing it as far as possible behind his body, then covering the strap with his elbow. Barely touching the bag with the tips of his fingers, Zac followed Taylor’s instructions. We resumed our march - or rather, our pathetic shuffle. A drop of perspiration traced an icy trail along my spine and down to the small of my back, followed by another, and then another. My bowels contracted once again and a freezing cold wave spread through my body, making me shiver. _Please_ , I silently prayed _Please_.

Our pace was ridiculously slow and within seconds only a couple of steps separated us from the patrol. They seemed to be engrossed in conversation. I sensed Zac’s body tensing beside me but before I had time to think, I heard Taylor’s preemptive strike:

“To His Return!”

“To His Return!” - the patrol barked back at him, not quite in unison, slowing down their walk slightly. The female officer shot a curious glance at Zac, turning her head as they passed us. I felt as if my chest was about to explode from the jackhammer heartbeat that was stopping me from breathing.

_This is it._

We walked on.

So did the Discipline Officers.

A few more steps.

And then we were in the clear. Taylor let out a long, slow breath, reminding me to do the same, although I didn’t dare make eye contact with him, still worried that the Discipline Officers might be watching us from behind.

Some interminable minutes later we reached the West Gate, where the usual loading and unloading of materials from delivery trucks was taking place. It was busy with Reformation Task Crew people working their butts off to make up for whatever misdemeanours they had allegedly perpetrated against official Flock policy. They were permanently underfed and overworked, and expected to always perform their tasks running. Despite not having any specialist training, RTCs were often put in charge of big projects like digging foundations and building houses, only for the fruit of their labor to be, without fail, deemed ‘unsatisfactory’ and eventually pulled down and rebuilt again from scratch by outside contractors a few months later. Too exhausted and worn out, RTCs were unlikely to pay any attention to us - at least, that was what I was hoping for.

We found a spot that partially shielded us from view behind a stack of food crates still waiting to be sorted. Some of the boxes displayed brand names lik _Doritos_ _Cheerios_ n _Dr Pepper_. Probably destined for the Officers’ Mess, I figured.

Taylor surveyed the area around us, studying the RTCs’ frantic dance.

“Ike, you’re sure about this driver guy, right? He’s really gonna help us?”

“I’m as sure as I can be. Why else would he always go on about his sister needing laborers at her farm?”

“I just don’t know what’s in it for him, that’s all” said Taylor, now examining the cuticles on his fingers.

“He feels sorry for us, Tay. He knows about Zac. He said there might be doctors who can operate on him”.

“Maybe when we find….” he stopped himself just in time and turned to look at Zac, who looked exhausted, leaning against the tower of crates, his eyes shut. Taylor brushed the back of his hand against our younger brother’s, up and down a couple of of times. Briefly, they locked fingers. I swallowed and forced myself to concentrate on the plan.

“We’ll get Zac to a good doctor once we get out.”

“If he turns up.”

“H _will_ turn up, Tay.”

My job as an Estates Supervisor meant that I came into contact with outsiders on a regular basis; mainly delivery men and the occasional engineer for those jobs that were too specialised for our home-trained jacks of all trades and the RTCs. Tigg was a regular driver and had been nothing but kind to me once he’d found out about our situation. I could only hope that my instincts were right.

“Is that his truck? With the globe logo, right?” Taylor motioned with his head towards the vehicle approaching the west gate.

“Looks like it.” - and right on cue, my stomach renewed its determination to make me suffer as much as possible.

Once through the gate, the truck would have to be unloaded - the internal roads of the Compound were too narrow and uneven for vehicles that size. A team of RTCs was always at hand to sort the goods into smaller vans and transport it around the Compound. The plan was to wait for the RTCs to do their job; Tigg would then go and sit in the cabin, ostensibly to fill in some paperwork, giving us the opportunity to sneak into the rear of the truck.

From where we were standing, we saw the vehicle park in an empty bay. Six or seven RTCs ran towards it, and like a bunch of locusts hopping from one place to another, they soon emptied it of its cargo. I couldn’t see Tigg but I figured that he was waiting in the cabin, as we’d agreed. I waited until all RTCs were occupied loading the stuff into one of the vans, then I turned round to Taylor.

“Now”.

Taylor went first and, swinging one leg over to the platform, he hauled himself up on the back of the truck. I pushed Zac forward.

“Now put your foot here buddy” I said, offering him a step up. Taylor was holding his arms out, ready to lift our younger brother by his arms and pull him onto the truck floor.

Zac stepped onto my interlaced fingers, holding on to my shoulder for balance; within seconds, Taylor had grabbed him under the armpits and lifted him up.

“I can’t believe how little you weigh” he said to Zac, glancing at me over his shoulder with a look of dismay.

“We’ll fatten you up soon, buddy” - I said, as I finally climbed onto the vehicle. “Now, you two, go and sit right at the back”.

And with that, I pulled down the truck’s roller shutter as quietly as I could.

It was pitch dark at the back and I rummaged at the bottom of my tool bag, underneath the duffel bag that I had stuffed inside, until I extracted a torch and flicked it on, making Zac’s eyes flinch from the sudden brightness. Inspecting the space around us, I wished that there were still some crates to hide behind; I felt that we were more exposed now, inside the empty truck, than we’d been outside, surrounded by the RTCs running around everywhere. And still no acknowledgement from Tigg about our plan. I flicked the torch off.

“Don’t want to use up too much battery”.

In actual fact, I didn’t want Taylor to see me. Clearly I wasn’t doing a very good job in trying to hide my concern, because he also seemed uneasy.

“Should he not come and check that we got on? Why is it taking him so long?”

“There are probably people around”.

“I can’t hear anyone talking or moving.”

“Hang on, what’s that noise?”

“What noise?”

“That--”. Steps. From behind us, following the length of the truck and round the back. Hands locking the padlock on the other side of the roller shutter. Then, the same hands, unlocking it.

“Wha _is_ he doing?” - Taylor whispered in my ear.

“I don’t---“

The roller shutter went all the way up the truck’s ceiling with a loud clang. This time all three of us flinched at the sudden invasion of light.

“WHAT …THE….FUCK?”

My eyes were still adjusting to the brightness but those three words uttered by a stranger’s voice were clear enough. The man standing in front of us with a heavy duty padlock in his hand and a look of utter confusion on his face was definitel _not_ Tigg.

He blinked a few times, as if he thought that maybe we were just some sort of apparition. I saw his eyes shifting from each one of us in turn to finally rest on Zac, who was shaking uncontrollably, his head buried into Taylor’s shoulder. Before I had a chance to speak, a voice called out from somewhere only a few steps away:

“Is there anything left in there man? Want me to send you a couple of RTCs to finish unload?”

 _I am going to vomit my own heart out_. I turned towards Taylor who was holding Zac tight, a hand holding our brother’s head against his chin. The man’s eyes seemed to be locked into Taylor’s.

“Did you hear me? Got anything else to unload?” - That voice again, this time closer, and the sound of heavy boots now seconds away.

At last, the trucker snapped out of the blinking contest. Turning his head towards the voice behind him, he shouted:

“No need, all done here.”

He pulled the roller shutter down.

_Posted via[LiveJournal app for iPhone](http://m.livejournal.com/iphone/link)._


	3. Passengers, Brothers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> POV: Isaac, Zac  
> Chapter Word Count: 4,706

For the first few minutes, no one spoke. The engine started, and we felt the tires underneath us rolling: we were moving. Sitting with our backs to the wall of the truck, it felt as if we were being dragged backwards, and it struck me as ironic that maybe, that’s what was really happening to us: we were travelling backwards, back into that outside world that we had once known, in search of some place that maybe we could still call home.  I heard Zac shift position, forcing Taylor to make some space for him and move a little closer to me. It went on for a few seconds, like a dog circling its bed to make it comfortable; eventually, I heard our little brother settle down, the back of the truck only a different shade of darkness to him.

The truck stopped again with the engine still running: we must have reached the gate. We heard the muffled sound of voices, barely audible in the engine noise - the gate security waving the vehicle out. I felt the shifting of gears and the acceleration, and found myself once again holding my breath. As we started to move again, Taylor’s hand reached for mine and squeezed it in the pitch blackness. I gripped it tightly, grateful for its contact, and conscious that I was probably crushing my brother’s fingers, though he didn’t seem to mind. We sat that like that for a while, holding on to each other, and I felt the sweat from the palm of his hand blending with mine, and held a little tighter. We had definitely gone through the West Gate. We were on the Outside.

Every turn and bump of the dirt track road beneath us shook us and shoved us against each other, until we hit smoother terrain and settled into a gentle sway, as we were dragged backwards through the winding roads that were taking us further and further away from the only life we knew.  It was warm in the truck, with only a little breeze filtering through a vent on the roof, and as the minutes passed, I became aware of a sharp, undefinable smell that was beginning to permeate the humid, stagnant air of our confined space. By the time I realised that it was coming from Zac, it had already burrowed deep into my nostrils. When was the last time he’d showered? A rush of anger towards the people who had neglected my little brother was quickly replaced by something else altogether - and my mind wandered to the place where I always sought refuge - waking dreams in which _I mattered_ to him. He was too weak to stand in the shower, I thought, so I’d help him out of his clothes and guide his legs over the bath - although we never had a bath in our tiny, sparsely furnished apartment at the Compound. First I would have checked the water’s temperature on my wrist, like a mother testing her baby’s bath. Then I’d get him to sit in the warm tub where I would have first placed a folded towel, to make the hard surface more comfortable on his bony, skinny body. I’d get a soft flannel and dampen it under the water, then squeeze some shower gel on it. I’d start at the back of his neck, gently rubbing off months of grime from his skin. Then I’d work my way down his back, following the bony trail of his vertebras all the way down, and then back up, repeating the pattern a couple of times, making him clean. Images of water over my little brother’s pale, almost translucent skin merged into one, and I was now washing his hair, and I could feel the weight of his head, leaning against my chest as I ran the shower head over him, warm water flattening the hair onto his face and soaking my top, and with my free hand I’d massage shampoo over his scalp, working it into a lather, washing away the dirt and degradation that he’d been made to endure for way too long, and then he’d raise his head and look at me and ---

“Ike!....Ike!” Taylor’s voice brought me out my daydream, which came crashing down on the truck’s floor. Still holding on to my hand, he gave it a little tug.

“Sorry I …”

“Where do you think this guy’s taking us, Ike?”

“I have no idea, but it feels like we’re on the highway now. The road feels smoother and we’re going in a straight line”. That was my best guess.  But I really had no clue. I hadn’t travelled on a highway since arriving at the Compound when I was 8 years old.

“What if we’re going in the opposite direction? We’ve got to get to that farm, right?”

“That was the plan...”

“So what are we gonna do now?”

“I don’t know, Tay, I don’t know what we’re gonna do, I know as much as you do at this point” I said, frustration making me speak louder than I’d intended to.

“Shhhh, keep it down, I think Zac’s asleep”

“He is?” I couldn’t believe that he’d managed to go to sleep when were locked in the back of a truck that was being driven by a complete stranger, to an unknown destination.

I flicked the torch back on, making sure not to point it too close to Zac’s face. He had curled up on the floor, his head resting on Taylor’s leg, and looked peaceful. Taylor was stroking his hair gently, only barely touching it.

“He’s exhausted” he said, then, quietly addressing our brother, added: “ I guess whatever is happening now is still better than being strapped down to a bed lying in your own piss, isn’t it buddy...?”

“What? They..?....” - I looked at our brother asleep on the floor - the smell emanating from his emaciated body making even more sense now.

“They had him tied down liken an animal, Ike” - Taylor’s voice was a croaky whisper. “Didn’t you notice his wrists? And his ankles…. the skin’s infected, we need to clean him up...get him to a doctor”.

“We will, once we know what’s going on here”.

I flicked the torch off and rested my head on the wall behind me; I closed my eyes. All sorts of possibilities were passing through my head, none of which were particularly good. The fact that this guy hadn’t given us away was promising, but what were his ulterior motives? Where was he taking us? He must have known that once we were through that gate, nobody would come looking for us. What if I’d put Zac and Taylor’s life in danger by trusting the wrong person? That strangled feeling in the depths of my bowels returned and suddenly the space we were in seemed really, really small. I looked up at the air vent and saw a flickering of sky. I reached out for Taylor’s hand again and when I held it firmly into my own, he leaned towards me and put his head on my shoulder. He was exhausted too. We all were.

I was beginning to drift off when we were suddenly pushed into each other by the truck’s change of direction; it slowed down, and then stopped. I sat up straight, and this time it was Taylor’s hand that crushed my fingers.  Zac stirred from his sleep. The cabin door slammed behind us and those same steps walked once again along the length of the truck, a repeat of the scene from only a short while earlier. _I don’t think I can take this again,_ I thought. He was outside.

I heard the noise of the lock clicking open again, and then the roller shut door shot all the way up to the truck’s roof.

A big, muscular guy with a full head of white hair was now standing outside the rear of the truck. He snapped the shackle locked and crossed his arms on his chest as he drew out a long sigh.

“So, who wants to tell me what’s going on here?”

I was just about to open my mouth when Taylor cut in.

“We had to get away from The Compound, our brother is sick” - Taylor gestured towards Zac, who was now fully awake and sitting up - “The other driver, Tigg, he was gonna help us, we thought this was his truck, he said he’d be there today, he was going to take us to his sister’s farm, please -”

“Slow down, slow down” - the man said, extending the palm of his hand out. He had slightly monkey-like features -  low brow and jutting out chin and was frowning, but maybe more out of confusion than anger. “So. You’re from that Flock cult and you’re trying to escape. Have I got that right?”

_That Flock Cult?_

“Yes sir”

“Er...Yeah”

Fortunately, Taylor had also realized that it was not the time to get into the specifics of our religion.

The driver drew in another long breath, studying us with a long, deliberate look. He glanced at Zac, then addressed Taylor again, who seemed to have taken on the role of the spokesman among us.

“What’s wrong with him?” he motioned towards Zac.

“He’s...he’s blind, and had some ….problems… and...they locked him up in the Detox Center and we had to get him out and we’re gonna try and get some help and -”

“Why... was he locked up?” the driver interrupted my brother’s breathless explanation.

“He was ….depressed...” Taylor said. He was looking at the man in that way peculiar to him, looking through you and making you feel as if you’re the most important person in his universe at the same time. I’ve never quite figured out if it’s just something that comes natural to him or if it’s a technique that he has really _studied_ , and let’s face it, Taylor’s always been very good at manipulating people, including most of the Processing Officers that were assigned to him over the years. Either way, I prayed that his charm worked with this guy.

“ _Depressed_? They lock you up for depression in that place? Jesus, I knew that those guys were nut cases but...” - he sounded incredulous.

“Do you know how we can get in touch with Tigg? We need to get to his sister’s farm but we have no idea of where it is” I interrupted.

“Tigg? I guess that’s the regular driver. Well, I hate to tell you but the haulage company just laid off a bunch of people, and that probably includes this Tigg dude. That’s why I’m doing this delivery today - I’m a relief driver, I work for myself. I really wouldn’t know how to get hold of your friend”.

“Wh...at?” - I felt as if I’d just been punched in the stomach. Taylor turned to look at me, the unspoken question _and now what?_ written all over his face. Stopping at the farm was the only part of the plan that carried a degree of certainty; we were going to work there for a couple of weeks, get Zac back on his feet, earn some money for the rest of the journey. Figure out how to find our father. Now, all of that was gone. We had very little food, one blanket between the three of us, and no money whatsoever. And we had our little brother to take care of - how we were going to do that, I had no idea. I was numb.

It was Taylor who, once again, took charge of the situation.

“Will you help us, _please_? Will you take us to the nearest town, somewhere were we can find a doctor at least, and then ….we’ll figure it out from there”. He locked his eyes into the driver’s, doing that thing again. “ _Please_. We can’t go back there. _He_ can’t go back to that cell”. He turned his gaze to Zac, putting a hand on his shoulder, then looked at the driver again, expectantly.

“Look guys....I....” - the man shook his head, looking down at his feet. He pinched the bridge of his nose, rubbing the skin between his fingers. “This is -”

 _“_ Please!”

All three of us turned to look at Zac, Taylor and I only marginally lessshocked than the driver was to hear him speak - the guy must have assumed that ‘blind’ also meant ‘mute’.

“ _Please_ ” - our little brother repeated, this time a little softer, as if he had used up all his courage the first time round. He was sitting up straight now, drawing loose circular patterns with his head, tracing figures of eight in the air with the tip of his nose as he tried to gauge the position of the guy’s eyes.

I glanced back at the man and I saw the expression on his face soften; his gaze was fixed on one of Zac’s hands, where the sleeve of his hooded top had ridden up, exposing the broken skin on his wrist. He sighed, then turned to Taylor and me. “ok” - he said.

Taylor heaved a sigh of relief so loud that it drowned my own; the only words both of us knew in that moment were ‘thank you’ - thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou until the man chuckled and told us to stop.

“There’s a bus stop about 30 miles from here. I can drop you off there. It should take you south, and most of the towns along the route will have a clinic or a hospital of some sort. How does that sound?”

Taylor and I looked at each other - we’d had exactly the same thought.

“What is it?” the driver asked, seeing our hesitation.

“The thing is…..” Taylor cast his eyes downwards, biting his lip “…..we don’t have any money” he added, and looked up at the man again. His cheeks were flushed pink. However brazen my brother could be, he was not used to _this_ , and neither was I. I asked myself if this was a taste of things to come.

The driver shook his head. “Don’t worry about that” - he said, and smiled. “Now, let’s get back on the road”. For the rest of the journey I felt the closest I’d been to happy in a long time. We’d made it out of the Compound, and we were together. We were three again. I tried to stop myself from letting the sense of relief wash over me, but it was hard to resist, especially after the misery of the last three months - not knowing what they were doing to Zac and not being allowed to see him. The certainty that he needed us.  And then the news filtering through via Taylor’s friend Layne, that things were bad, and that they had no intention of letting our brother out. That made the decision for us, and the doubts that had been creeping up in our minds as we’d entered adulthood had suddenly become impossible to ignore. How could The Shepherd’s teachings talk of salvation and yet condemn to perdition anyone who struggled with them? The very words of The Shepherd, used to send the lambs of his own Flock _to the slaughter_. And just how was locking my brother up in a dark room going to help him overcome the depression and despair that he’d plunged into since losing his eyesight? Nothing made sense anymore. Our beliefs, our religion, everything that we knew - it all seemed absurd. The Church of Reconstruction - _The Flock_ \- preached about the reconstruction of the Immortal Soul, but it was determined to crush and destroy that very soul as soon as it dared show the thinnest of cracks. I hated it now. I hated the Church and the Compound and what they had done to my brother. I _hated it_. A thought formed in my mind, and for the first time since I could remember, I allowed myself to listen, and then I saw it - I saw it in big, capital letters, and it was written in my brother’s blood, and it seeped through every page of every leather-bound copy of _The Shepherd’s Journey,_ and it was scrawled on every door, and on every wall, and it was painted like a piercing red howl on the front gate of the Compound, The Shepherd’s Temple: _THE FLOCK IS A LIE._

And that’s how one thought became real. It didn’t take very long to reach the bus stop. The driver pulled up the roller shutter and then went back into the cabin while we helped our brother out of the truck. He came back carrying a bundle of green, shiny fabric. “Sleeping bag”, he said, handing it over to me. “You might need this”. Before we even had a chance to say something, he dug into his jacket’s inside pocket, and produced a thin roll of money. “This should be enough for your bus fares and something to eat” he said, offering it to us. Taylor and I stared at the driver in disbelief: we’d been raised to believe that no good could come from the Outsiders, and now a complete stranger had just given us his sleeping bag and his cash. The driver grabbed Taylor’s wrist and pushed the bills onto his open palm, then, with both hands, he curled my brother’s fingers over the money. “You keep this”.

“We…we don’t know what to say” - Taylor stuttered.

“Yeah we…” - I couldn’t add anything else. I was floored by the man’s unexpected kindness.

“Don’t worry about it. You just get on that bus - there should be one every hour. And take care of your brother, all right?” and in saying that, he motioned towards Zac, who was holding on to Taylor’s arm, and gave him one last, worried look. Then he turned round and walked back to the truck’s cabin, and we stood there as he started the engine and finally pulled away. He’d never even told us his name.

The timetable fixed onto the metal post listed the bus times and, sure enough, one was meant to drive past every hour. I glanced at my watch and was relieved to see that we only had half an hour’s wait until the next one was due.

“Well” - Taylor said, running a hand through his hair “Here we are”.

“Uh-huh” _Here we are indeed_ , I thought. _No going back now._

“I need to pee” - Zac whimpered, reminding us of the practicalities of our journey.

I didn’t give Taylor a chance to respond. “I’ll take him”, I said.

“All right then” - he sat down on the ground by the bus stop, and I thought he seemed glad to let me take care of things, for once.

I put one hand on Zac’s back and the other on his shoulder, and guided him towards a row of bushes that flanked the verge of the road. Once we were hidden from view, I put a hand on his chest and stopped him: “Ok, here’s good, Zac”. My little brother’s hands were shaking as he fumbled with the elasticated waist of his tracksuit pants, trying to extract himself from the fabric, the growing urge to go making him impatient. “Here, let me do it” I told him, moving his hands out of the way and pulling his pants down. The last thing he needed was to piss all over his clean clothes and make himself smell even worse. I grabbed a fistful of the hooded top around his neck and held him up steady while he relieved himself, watching the dark amber coloured flow pour out of him and form a puddle on the hard, sun-baked soil. Even after drinking all that water earlier, he was still clearly dehydrated.  I snaked a finger under the bunched up fabric that I was holding him by, and stroked the bare skin underneath; he arched his neck backwards, rubbing the back of his head against my finger, only slightly, an imperceptible movement, but one that made my heart skip a beat. _Maybe._ He turned his head expectantly towards me when he was done, not even trying to dress himself. I pulled his pants back up and lead him back to the side of the road where Taylor was waiting.

We sat side by side on the soft verge, too tired to talk, until Taylor and I saw the bus approaching in the distance, its chrome exterior glowing in the late afternoon sun, making us squint. Taylor jumped up and stuck his arm out, and the bus slowed down, eventually coming to a halt by the metal post that we were standing by. A door opened with a slow hiss, like the sound of steam from a boiling kettle.  A man in camouflage uniform was standing on the threshold: a _soldier?_

“Your papers please!” he barked at us.

Taylor and I looked at each other. “What…papers?” I asked the soldier, trying to peer behind him. The bus driver was looking at us, expressionless.

“Your documentation. Proof of Residency or Permit to Roam only. No travel south otherwise”.

“What….? We….we just need to get to the nearest town.” Taylor said, and I heard the panic his voice  ”We don’t have any papers. We were….we come from the Compound. We’ve got money for tickets” - he took the roll of bills out of his pocket and showed them to the soldier.

“No southbound travel is allowed unless you’re returning residents or have a Permit to Roam. There are border checks about 10 miles south of here. Too many people trying to push south.” The soldier recited all of this as if he’d repeated it hundreds of times. He paused and stared at Taylor.  “Where are you trying to go?”

“We….we need to get our brother to a doctor…a hospital…”

The soldier stared at Zac, sizing him up. He addressed Taylor again:

“The best thing you can do is to turn around, cross the road and get on the bus that goes the other way. How far is it from here?” he turned to ask the bus driver.

“About a mile” we heard the driver say.

“About a mile from here” the soldier relayed the information to us. “Find the bus stop and board the northbound route. No need for papers on that one”. Then he turned back and the bus door hissed shut again.

We stood at the side of the road, watching another vehicle leave us behind. Taylor grabbed Zac’s hand and looked at me.

“Well” he sighed “ I guess we’re heading north”. We walked slowly, Taylor and I both on Zac’s side, pushing him along, letting him stop to catch his breath every couple of minutes, then resuming our crawl, our own _march to salvation_. By the time we reached the bus stop, we were hot and sweaty from the relentless sunshine. Taylor took a water bottle out of his bag, and we each took a small sip before handing it over to Zac. We watched him as he gulped down the rest of the bottle before handing the empty plastic container back to Taylor. “Thanks a bunch, Zaccy” muttered Taylor under his breath, and then we caught each other’s eyes, and we laughed. _Brothers_. We didn’t have to wait too long for the bus and this time there was no soldier asking for papers. We asked the driver where the nearest town was.

“This one goes straight to the City. Direct route. We’ll be there by morning.”

 _The City._ We’d only heard that place mentioned in hushed tones by new recruits and members who, unlike us, had grown up outside the sheltered walls of Compound. It was synonym of perdition; an underworld of compulsion and degradation, of certain condemnation of the Immortal Soul. I told myself _none of it is true_.

Taylor handed over the money to the driver; that’s when we realized, to our dismay, that our change consisted of only a handful of coins, the City being a lot further than the southern town we were originally supposed to travel to. Taylor tightened his lips as he pocketed the coins, and a frown crossed his forehead: one more time, I was glad that Zac was spared another reason to worry.

The bus was only half full and I scanned the empty seats in front of us, trying to find a few unoccupied rows; although I’d gotten used to my little brother’s less than fragrant smell, I was painfully aware that he looked pretty rough and smelled accordingly to unaccustomed noses.  I walked along the corridor, trying to ignore the curious glances from some of the other passengers, until I found a couple of empty rows at the back. There were two seats on each row, and I noticed the look in Taylor’s eyes, coveting the relative comfort of the padded seating.

“Tay, why don’t you try and get some sleep for a bit. I’ll sit with Zac” - There was no way either of us would let him sit on his own for even a split second. He had already been taken away from us once.

“Are you sure?” he narrowed his eyes slightly, biting his lips.

“Yeah, get some rest Tay, we don’t know when we’ll have a chance next”.

I guided Zac to the window seat and dropped myself onto the one next to him. Then I remembered that I was still carrying the truck driver’s sleeping bag.

“Tay?” I turned my head towards the row of seats behind me.

“Yeah?”

“Here” - I held out my arm, dangling the small, shiny bundle by its drawstring cord.

Taylor’s hand instantly snatched it away, relieving me of the weight. “Thanks, Ike”.

I heard him unroll the sleeping bag and make himself comfortable. Finally, I took out the blanket I’d packed in my tool bag and placed it around Zac, who had already put his head against the window and had closed his eyes. Cool air blew from the air vents on top of our seats and I shivered slightly. I buttoned up my jacket and turned my head to the window, determined to watch over my little brother and guard him in his sleep, until my eyelids felt heavier and heavier, and the noise of the moving bus went quiet, and I, too, was gone.

\----------------------------

They thought I was asleep.

I let them believe it, just as I’d done a while earlier at the back of that truck. It was easier that way. After all that time on my own in the Detox Center, every noise seemed amplified: the truck’s engine; the tires rolling over the uneven ground; my brothers’ voices. It was jarring. Outside the Detox Center, it was as if I was learning to use my senses again, and it was... intense. I felt as if I was being spun around in the darkness, in _my_ darkness. I couldn’t see my brothers’ faces, but I heard the fear that they were so desperately trying to hide from their voices. I felt their breath becoming shallow and I felt perspiration cover their skin. I felt their forced smiles as they talked to me and I felt the anxious looks that they exchanged between each other. I felt their hearts pound.  But more than anything, I felt my brothers’ boundless, unconditional love for me.

That’s when I allowed myself to switch off, for I knew then that, whatever happened, wherever this bus was taking us, I would be safe. _We_ would be safe. My heartbeat finally quietened as I felt the road slipping slowly from under me and slowly sliding, like one last unstoppable march to salvation - freedom for my broken, mortal soul, and for my brothers’.


	4. Bright Lights, Blue City

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> POV: Taylor  
> Word Count: 5,923

A bump on the road shook me out of my sleep and for a second, I didn’t know where I was. The bus. A black plastic vent above me was blowing cold air on my face and my eyes felt dry and sore as I forced myself to move from the warm comfort of the sleeping bag. I sat up and blinked a few times to get my eyes to function properly, then, propping myself on my elbows, I peered over the two seats in front of me. My brothers were still asleep, and I smiled to myself at their sleeping arrangements: Zac had taken over both seats, and his entire upper body was laid over Isaac’s lap, while his legs were curled up in the small space left near the window. A few strands of stringy brown hair were all I could see, sticking out from under the blanket that my baby brother had pulled all the way over his head, and which was held in place by Isaac’s arm absently resting over it. I felt slightly guilty at the relatively luxury I’d been able to enjoy, while my older brother had been used as a human pillow by Zac.  
  
I leaned over Isaac’s seat and spoke into his ear.  
“Ike, wake up! We’re almost there!”  
“Huumm what?” he groaned, looking to his left hand side, and then down to his lap. “Someone made himself comfortable” he said, pulling the blanket a couple of inches down from Zac’s head and running a finger on our brother’s cheek. Zac wrinkled his nose but clearly had no intention of getting up.  
  
“We’re in the city, Ike” and I dropped myself back on my seat. I shifted to be near the window and pressed my face against the glass pane.The landscape outside was changing rapidly, as the long rows of identical-looking houses with identical-looking gardens were being replaced by square tall buildings, and apartment blocks, and taller buildings still. I hadn’t left the Compound since I was 5 years old.  
  
As our bus approached what I assumed to be the city center, it slowed down to a crawl amid a sea of other vehicles: - cars of all sizes, buses, trucks, motorbikes. I’d never seen so many vehicles in one place before.  The noise pierced its way inside the bus: a crash of motors, and jackhammers, and the scraping of nails on metal.  The high pitch whine of sirens from different directions. And then  _people_. The sidewalks were seething with people, men in business suits carrying briefcases, people in jeans, women in high heels with oversized purses on their arms, young people, old people, people of skin colours I’d never seen. I had never seen so many human beings walking down the same road at the same time. Was that a  _march to salvation_?  
  
It was broad daylight but everything was illuminated by neon signs, and traffic lights, and by the sun’s reflection on these crazy high buildings that looked like shards of silver sprouting out from the street.  On every street, huge signs flashed the strange names of stores I had never heard of, and products whose existence I had long forgotten.  _Coca-Cola_.  _McDonald’s_. What on earth was  _Starbucks_? People walked in an out of these places, clutching paper cups with brown cardboard rings around them. People were eating and drinking in the streets, no Discipline Officers anywhere to be seen. A current of euphoria passed through my body. I could have watched this incredible show all day long. But then something hit me on the head. A banana.  
  
“Breakfast?”  
  
Isaac was grinning at me from his seat. We ate what was left of the food that he’d packed for the journey, and I didn’t allow myself to worry about when we’d eat next. We’d made it to the City: everything would be okay now. Suddenly, I couldn’t wait to get out of the bus and step into the real world. I rolled up the sleeping bag and stuffed it back into its drawstring bag.  
  
“Ike, are you going to leave that tool bag behind now? No need for the extra weight now, right?”  
Isaac looked down at the tool bag that was wedged under the seat in front of him.   
“I guess you’re right. We don’t have to worry about the duffel bag looking suspicious now”, he mused.   
“We don’t have to worry about a lot of things now, Ike” I said, believing it.  
  
  
As we approached the downtown neighbourhood of the Central Bus Station, things outside began to look strangely different. The people walking on the sidewalks were of a different sort - they weren’t the smartly dressed workers that I’d seen earlier; these people looked a lot more … like us.  They walked without the same purposeful urgency of the others and a lot of them were carrying backpacks, or duffels; some were wheeling battered suitcases behind. And they were all walking in the same direction. Why?  
  
“Tay, look at that” Ike was on his knees on the seat, pointing at a cluster of men standing on the street some twenty yards away. They seemed to be all wearing green. “Looks familiar?”  
I looked again and as we got closer, I recognized the colours of camouflage uniforms.  
“Soldiers??”  
“Looks that way”.  
The bus drove right past the patrol, only to drive past another one, and then another. It didn’t look like they were doing anything apart from watching the flow of people and occasionally gesturing them to move along; still, they were armed. I glanced at Isaac and motioned at Zac, pressing my index finger against my lips. He nodded and sat back down next to him. “Almost there buddy, ok?” A couple of minutes later we were pulling into the Central Bus Station.  
  
  
Isaac walked in front of me, leading our baby brother by the elbow as we stepped out of the bus and onto the chaos of the platform. “MOVE ALONG, MOVE ALONG!” - a soldier shouted -“KEEP MOVING!”  
 _Where to?_ , I mumbled through gritted teeth. There were people everywhere. We didn’t know where we were going and we were being pushed along and jostled like cattle. Walking in front of me, I could see Zac turning anxiously towards Isaac. “I’m right behind you, Zac” I managed to tell him, shouting to make myself heard,  and put my hand on his shoulder, keeping it there as we walked to the end of the platform and into the the main station concourse. It was a huge, cavernous space; it must have been over 100 ft. high and the ceiling was painted with a blue sky, complete with clouds and constellations; we’d never seen anything like that before, and Isaac and I both stood in awe, our heads tilted back, allowing ourselves to enjoy that stunning sight for a few moments. When I finally managed to take my eyes off the ceiling, I looked around. The place was heaving with the same kind of people we’d seen along the road. And soldiers - a lot of soldiers, stationed in a regular pattern all across the massive hall.  
  
I felt Zac’s hand claw at my arm.  
  
“I don’t feel so good, Tay” he said.  
  
I looked at him. His face had turned an alarming tinge of greenish grey. I ran my fingers under a strand of hair that was glued to his face with sweat, and lifted it off his skin, tucking it as neatly as I could behind his ear.  
  
“We’ve got to get out of here and find you a doctor”, I said, more to myself than to him. He gripped my arm a little tighter.  
  
“Ike?”   
“Hhm?” he glanced briefly at my arm, which Zac had attached himself to, before looking back at me.   
“Ike, we need to get him to a doctor”.  
“I know” he said in a breath that sounded as if shrouded in concrete.  
  
I knew my brother, and I was used to his sensible, serious ways. I guess some would say boring. I don’t know if it was a natural thing or the result of years of trying hard at his Processing Levels, and of always being told that he needed to filter more. So that’s what he always tried to do - he was constantly filtering - always struggling to create this air of impassibility around him; as a result, the range of emotions that he would allow himself to convey was generally limited to ‘serious’ and ‘very serious’ and, under exceptional circumstances, ‘grave’. But I could see the worry in his face now, and I felt my own anxiety levels rise tenfold, because I needed my big brother to tell me that it was all going to be okay, not to look more scared than me.  _Dammit, Ike, can you not at least pretend, just to make me feel better?_  
  
“So...what are we going to do?” I stared at him.  _Please, Ike_.  
  
He scanned the crowded space around us, rubbing his jaw.

 

“Right….what we’re gonna do…we’ll ask a soldier where the nearest hospital is...” he said, kind of talking to himself.   
I looked at him, unblinkingly.   
“…there has to be some sort of clinic nearby…”  
“….we’ll get there one way or another….”   
“…we’ll take breaks when he gets tired. But we’ll get there…” -  
  
 _I’d follow you to the other end of the world_.  
  
“….they have proper medicines on the Outside, I remember Tigg saying” he continued, still really talking to himself. “To them, it’s probably nothing, right?…”  
I nodded.  _Right. It’s probably nothing_.  
  
“He’s gonna be ok, Tay” he looked at me now, and the resolution in his brown eyes didn’t take long to convince me.  
“You’re gonna be okay soon, buddy, hang in there”, his voice a touch softer when he addressed Zac. He put a hand at the back of our baby brother’s neck, stroking him gently and then looked at me: “Now, wanna go find a friendly soldier?”  
  
  
There was a hospital about 2 miles from the Central Bus Station, the soldier said. A Charity Hospital, only a few blocks down, all on a straight line along  along Paradise.  _Paradise?_  “Paradise Road”, he repeated. “Connects Downtown to Paradise Valley. That’s where the hospital is.” he said, before going back to barking at the crowd.   
  
  
We walked slowly in the morning sun, which was making us sweat despite the cool fall air. We’d resumed our now familiar formation - Zac in the middle, Isaac and I at his sides, guiding him forward, trying to guess when we could push him a little bit further and when he’d really had too much and needed to stop for a few moments, and rest. All that stopping and starting was making the walk seem twice as long and the sun twice as hot; to make things worse, I wasn’t wearing any socks and my feet were blistering from all the rubbing against the hard canvas of my shoes. There was only a narrow sidewalk separating us from the highway, and hardly anyone walking on it, but cars whizzed past us in a constant flow. It took us almost two hours to walk those couple of miles; by the end of it, we were practically dragging our brother along, his head hanging limply down, hair all over his face. I couldn’t hide my relief when the sign we were looking for appeared in the distance -  _Golgotha Community Hospital_.  
  
“Finally” Isaac said, his head falling back slightly as he let out a huge breath. We both knew that our baby brother couldn’t have gone much further.  
  
We took a paper ticket from a machine at the front door and waited in line for another ten minutes before our number appeared on a screen; but we’d barely taken a step in the direction of the front desk that the clerk demanded: ‘Your papers, please!’  
  
“We don’t have any papers” I said.  _Please, not again_ , I thought to myself.  I tried to explain the situation, as I’d done with the soldier at the bus stop, but the clerk was having none of it.  
“We can only see unidentified patients if it’s an emergency” she said, looking up and down at Zac.  
“But it  _is_ an emergency” Isaac pleaded. “Please, look at him” he said to the woman, pointing at my brother.  
“I’m sorry, but if he is able to stand, it’s not an emergency”, she said, and reached into a plastic tray on the side of her desk. She took a sheet of paper and handed it to me. “If you go and register with the DPRC you can get a Displaced Status Card.”  
“DPRC?” I looked at the bit of paper and then back at the woman, shaking my head.  
“Displaced Population Reception Centre” explained the clerk, peering over our shoulders, already assessing the line of people behind us. “Directions in the handout. Next!”  
  
Next….  _what_? Zac couldn’t walk to that DPRC place even if we wanted to: from the map on the handout I figured it would take us at least another two hours to get there. My baby brother didn’t have two hours left in him to do _any_  walking. Heck, he didn’t have twenty minutes. We certainly couldn’t go any further. We dragged ourselves outside and sat down on the sidewalk that ran between the hospital and the parking lot. Zac slumped forward, his head hanging between his knees. Isaac looked at me and all I could see in his face was pain and worry. If Isaac was running out of ideas, what were we going to do?  
  
“Try and give him some water Tay” he said, putting an arm around our brother. “He’s absolutely drenched in sweat”.   
I rummaged in my bag and took out a water bottle. It was only about an inch full. Isaac lifted Zac’s head and I poured the last trickle of water into his mouth; he was only just responsive enough to swallow it before slumping forward again. I turned the empty bottle over and over in my hands, staring through the clear plastic.  
“Don’t we have another one?” asked Isaac.  
“We do but that’s also empty” - I produced another empty container out of my bag. I’d kept it so that we could refill it at the earliest opportunity but had forgotten to do so at the bus station’s restrooms.  _Idiot_.   
“Well maybe we can get back into the hospital and refill them in the restrooms” he said “I doubt they would ask us for  _papers_  to do that.” he added. There. My elder brother had already found a simple solution for another problem.  
  
I was preparing myself to get up and sneak back into the hospital, when I saw a man walking towards us from the parking lot.   
“Is everything ok there?” he hollered.  
Isaac and I looked at each other, unsure of to what to do. The man seemed young, maybe a couple of years older than Isaac, with straight blond hair that went past his chin. We looked up at him as he came to stand in front of us. A laminated I.D. card dangled from a lanyard around his neck, and he caught me trying to read it.  
  
“I’m a doctor” he said, pointing to the card on his chest - what’s the matter with your friend?”  
“He’s…” Isaac started to say but I interrupted him.  
“He’s our brother... he’s sick…. he can’t walk anymore but they won’t even take a look at him” - I motioned at the hospital behind us - “because we have  _no papers…-_ ” I choked up. I’d managed to keep it together up until that point, but thinking of the treatment my baby brother had just received was breaking down my last reserves of composure.  
  
The doctor crouched down in front of Zac, tilting his head to one side to get a look at our baby brother’s face, which was hanging between his knees and was covered by a curtain of greasy hair.  
  
“What’s his name?” - the doctor asked us, looking at me first, then at Isaac. His eyes reminded of Layne’s - a very pale shade of blue, much lighter than my own.  
  
“His name is Zac” replied Isaac, moving a band of hair from our brother’s face and tucking it behind his ear.  
  
The doctor nodded and looked at Zac again.  
  
“Zac” he said to our brother “My name is Jesse, I’m a doctor. Can you lift your head up for me, mate?” -  _Mate?_ I’d never heard that before. The guy had a strange, slightly nasal accent from a place I couldn’t identify; but there was kindness in his voice, just like Layne.  
Zac shook his head slowly.  
“How long has he been like this?”  
“A while…we sat down and gave him some water but…” Isaac’s words trailed off.  
The doctor glanced at the empty water bottle that was still in my hands.  
“Zac?” he said, lifting our baby brother’s head, gently placing a hand under his chin and tilting his forehead backwards with the other.  
Zac’s eyelids fluttered, his eyes darting left and right between blinks. A frown formed between the doctor’s eyes and he looked at me questioningly.  
“He’s blind” I explained.  
He opened his mouth as if to say something but didn’t. Instead, he felt Zac’s temple with the back of his hand.   
“He’s running a fever. Can you guys hold his head up while I take his pulse?” he asked, lifting Zac’s arm and pushing the sleeve back. He gasped when he saw what was underneath.  
  
“Jesus Christ” he said, jerking his head back. His eyes widened as he held Zac’s arm between his hands, supporting it from underneath to expose the injuries on our brother’s wrist without having to touch them. He exhaled, and slowly looked up from under his eyebrows, resting his eyes on me first, and then on Isaac. “These are ligature wounds. What’s going on here, guys?”  
“It’s…” I closed my eyes for a second, biting my bottom lip. “It’s a really long story.”   
I felt tears rising and maybe that was enough of an explanation, because the doctor didn’t insist. “It’s even worse on his ankles” I added, and leaning over, I rolled up the pant leg over one of Zac’s ankles. A foul smell shot up into my nostrils: the entire lower leg was swollen and red. A wave of nausea forced me to sit back, letting the doctor take a look for himself. Gingerly, he began to roll down the sock; and that’s when my baby brother cried out with a force that I didn’t know he still had, and that took us all aback for a moment. A horrible taste rose up in my throat.  _I can’t be sick now because then Zac will know how bad it really is_. I swallowed and tried to breathe slowly. “You’re all right Zac, you’re all right” the doctor,  _Jesse,_ kept saying to my baby brother as he put the sock back into place as gently as possible, and then rolled down the leg of his tracksuit pants. He looked up at me and Isaac.  
  
“Those wounds are infected. I’m not going to ask you how he got them but he needs medical attention and he needs antibiotics, now”. Jesse said really slowly. Did he think we were stupid? I tried to say something but no words came out.

“We told you, we tried to get him looked at” Isaac stepped in “but they won’t treat him because we have no papers and it’s not an emergency” he added, without a hint of bitterness or sarcasm or any of the feelings that were bubbling up inside me at that point.  _My brother really is a much better person than I am_.“They said we should go to this DP...something place and get a special card but he can’t walk that far --- my brother’s voice cracked and he was unable to carry on too. There we were again, in the hands of a complete stranger once again in less than 24 hours.  
  
Jesse stood up slowly and glanced around. People were coming and going at the far end of the parking lot, but nobody seemed to be paying any attention to us.  He looked at his watch and said: “Come with me”.  
  
He took us to a service entrance and disappeared for a couple of minutes. When he returned, he was pushing a wheelchair.  _Why is he helping us?_ ,I asked myself, another one of many unanswered questions that had been buzzing around in my head since leaving the Compound.  
  
  
Within minutes, Jesse had found us a cubicle and drawn a curtain around it, dismissing a nurse with a clipboard who was insisting in taking over Zac’s ‘case’. He helped our brother on to a trolley, lifting one leg over it, then the other, talking to him, explaining every step of what he was about to do; I’d never seen anyone behaving like that towards us, let alone towards Zac. In the Compound he’d always been barely tolerated, and since his illness he had largely been brushed off by other members as damaged goods. He’d always been different, hard to control at times, prone to outbursts that seemed to come from nowhere and that disappeared as quickly as they’d come with the help of a soothing word from me or a brotherly lecture from Isaac. My baby brother had never hurt anyone in his life but he had been relentlessly punished for the last two years; where was  _his_  salvation?  
  
“Now Zac, I’m going to take your temperature, okay?” - Jesse was brandishing something that looked a lot like a gun, and, seeing the look on our faces, he paused:  
“It won’t hurt him -  it just goes into his ear, and takes a couple of seconds. Are you happy for me to do that, Zac?”.  
 _Is he actually asking for Zac’s permission?_  
Zac nodded, reciprocating the doctor’s kindness with his complete trust.  _My baby brother_. I thought.  _He’s not used to being treated like a human being anymore_.  _But this will change_ , I promised myself.  
  
We  dragged a couple of stools to the edge of the trolley that Zac was lying on and watched the doctor as he wheeled a small chest of drawers towards him and looked inside for some syringes and vials. He took out a pair of pink latex gloves from a box on top of a tray and put them on.  
 “I’m going to inject the area with some local anaesthetic Zac, you’ll only feel a little scratch, ok? That will stop it from hurting when I clean you up”.  
  
He set to clean and dress our brother’s wounds, warning him whenever he was doing something that Zac could find uncomfortable. I was transfixed by his accent; was he from this country? He spoke fluently but it just sounded...different. I’d heard that there were other countries on the Outside that spoke our language, but in the Compound, everybody pretty much sounded the same. He  _looked_ like he could be one of us though. He could have been Layne’s brother...he could have been  _our_  brother. Suddenly, I felt an overwhelming urge to touch him: he was....beautiful. But he didn’t feel  _real_. Being on the Outside was strange, but Jesse was stranger. His strangeness was intoxicating and I felt the rush of euphoria from earlier flooding back; I wanted to throw my hands around the Outside and feel it, drink it, taste it, experience its dangers, put its promises to the test; my hands itched to run through Jesse’s long, blond hair and I imagined myself holding his face between my hands, my lips over his, whispering into his mouth,  _if you save my brother, I will die for you._  
  
A deep, growling noise broke the silence in the cubicle. Jesse turned to look at us, but I knew it was Isaac. He looked down and reddened. “I saw a water machine in the corridor, I’m going to go and get us something to drink” - I told my elder brother, putting a hand on his shoulder, and in return, he gave me a smile that contained almost thirty years of complicity. Jesse shot us a curious glance, but didn’t say anything.  
  
I returned to the cubicle with two cups of chilled water and the two bottles that I had now refilled and put in my bag; I felt some reassurance in knowing that we had enough to drink. We could go without food but not without water, and who knew where our next meal was going to come from? Isaac sipped the water slowly but I gulped down the contents of the cup in one go. I felt the cold liquid run all the way inside me, and I shuddered. By the time the iced water made it all the way down, I felt as if I’d been punched - cold waves sloshing around inside me, with little to absorb them; it hurt. Soon the relief of putting something in my stomach gave way to ruthless pangs of hunger. I wondered if Isaac was as hungry as I was, but then I remembered Zac, who had been starving for the past three months, and I felt pathetic for feeling so famished after just one day. To make it worse, now my stomach was rumbling too, and I knew that Jesse could hear it as he methodically worked his way through Zac’s wrists and ankles.   
A couple of times nurses barged into the cubicle, and he sent them away;  _is he breaking the rules to help us?_ I wondered, and even then, I knew the answer. It was just so difficult to believe it after a lifetime of indoctrination.  
  
“I’m done here” said Jesse when he was finally finished, peeling the latex gloves off his hands and throwing them into a pedal trash can. He pulled the curtain open.  
“I’ll be back in a few minutes. Don’t go anywhere, okay?” he stressed, before drawing the curtain closed around us again.   
He couldn’t have been gone more than a few minutes before he was back, carrying a large paper bag marked ‘Pharmacy’.  
He checked that the curtain was drawn closed again before handing the bag to me.   
“Take it” he said, walking to Zac’s bedside to check the I.V. my brother was hooked to. I opened the bag: inside were three sandwiches and three candy bars. I parted my lips to say something but he didn’t let me speak.  
“I’ll be back when the I.V.’s run dry” he said before disappearing again.  
“Hungry?” I said to Isaac, showing him the paper bag; his eyes widened as he looked inside. His hand hadn’t even made it inside the bag when Zac’s voice made us both jump.  
“We’ve got food?”  
  
  
“Heck, Zaccy, I thought sick people had no appetite” I joked. Isaac had barely had the time to take the sandwich out of its plastic box that Zac had already snatched it from his hands and shoved half of it down his throat, reminding me of one of those banded geckos that we used to spend hours watching when we were kids - how the gecko would swallow its prey whole first, and chew it at leisure afterwards, like some sort of afterthought. We’d stare at it with a child’s morbid fascination at the gruesome spectacle - half the cricket body’s still sticking out of the reptile’s mandible, hopelessly kicking in the air. And there was my baby brother, bits of lettuce poking out of his mouth, still  _ravenous_ ; somehow, I found the thought comforting. When the last crumb of sandwich was gone, he turned his head up to Isaac, expectantly.  _How does he know we have chocolate?_ I marvelled at how accurately his eyes followed Isaac’s every movement as he tore the wrapper open for him. Once he got hold of it, gone was the gecko-like voraciousness of only a few seconds earlier: Zac had chocolate, and he was going to make it last. We stared at our brother in amused disbelief as he took the first tentative, tiny nibbles at his sweet treasure, clutching it with unsteady hands, the gloopy caramel filling spilling out, clinging to his mouth and sticking to his scruffy beard. He’d stop every few moments, licking his lips clean of every trace of sweetness, only to then resume his task again, changing tactics, licking the outer layer, then opting to put the tip of the candy bar his mouth and let it melt, working his way down the length of the chocolate. He closed his eyes as he let out a long, soft, appreciative moan.  
  
“Shhh, Zac!” Isaac and I shushed him - “Do you want them to kick us out?” I felt bad for scolding him but I knew that my baby brother could be...  _loud_.  
  
Isaac’s grumbling stomach reminded us that we needed to eat, too. He took out half the contents from the paper bag and gave them to me. We looked at each other, once again intercepting our mutual thoughts the moment they were formed. When I nodded at him, he put his share in the duffel bag: tomorrow’s dinner. I took half the sandwich out and handed the box with the rest to my brother; as usual, I was finished first. I unwrapped the candy bar and snapped it in two, before offering him half. “Want dessert?”  
  
  
When Jesse returned, we showed him the printout that the clerk had given us earlier. He looked at it and nodded.  
“Ah. Blue City. I volunteer at the medical tent there every other Sunday”  
“Blue what?” I asked.  
“The DPRC...people call it Blue City. The colour of the tents”.  
“The  _tents_?” Isaac beat me to it.  
“It’s a city-run camp. You can register for a Displaced Status Card there, and at at least you’ll have  _some_  papers then, because you can’t do much without some form of identification, guys”, he said, giving the printout back to Isaac. “The most urgent cases are given a tent in the camp for up to four weeks.” He narrowed his eyes as he looked at Zac. “And you’re definitely an urgent case, aren’t you mate?” he added with mock seriousness, prompting a wide smile from my baby brother. I hadn’t seen him smile like that for a long time.  Jesse continued: “I’m going to give you a letter for the DPRC explaining that you have a physical disability and are receiving treatment for an ongoing condition. Which is the truth, as you’re going to have to take a course of antibiotics for your wounds, Zac, okay?” I loved it how he addressed my brother directly. “Hopefully that will get you guys your own tent. I’m assuming that you don’t have anywhere better to go, right?” He added, suddenly seeming unsure.  
“Uh, nope” I cast my eyes down, shaking my head.  
“We don’t know anyone in the city” added Isaac, quietly. The truth was, we didn’t know anyone on the Outside. _The rest of the world_.  
“Okay, well, if you’re at the camp then I’ll be able to check up on Zac” he said and gently put his hand on my baby brother’s shoulder, including him in the conversation. That was the kind of thing that we always tried to do - brushing his arm or stroking his hair - just the smallest physical contact, but enough to make our brother  _feel_ our words, an attempt to pierce through the loneliness of his fuzzy, dark world. Nobody else ever bothered, and I wondered if Jesse had done that because he was a doctor, of if he somehow understood. Either way, his kindness was shattering everything I knew.  
  
  
When it was time for us to leave, Jesse walked us out of the hospital, pushing Zac on a wheelchair until he found us a taxi.  
“Can you take these guys to Blue City?” he asked the driver, giving him a couple of folded dollar bills. He then turned to us. “Make sure you show them the letter I gave you” he said, and gave us a long, hard look, as if to impress the importance of his instructions. “And Zac, I’ll see you at the camp clinic in a couple of weeks, okay?” and in saying that, he squeezed our baby brother’s hand before helping him into the taxi.  
I started to climb into the back of the car after my brothers when I felt Jesse’s hand reaching into my coat pocket. As I turned to face him, he withdrew his hand, patted my back and turned away. I slammed the car door shut, and I checked what it was.  
“Ike, look at this”- I said to him, showing him a small, white envelope that had  _Golgotha Community Hospital_ printed next to the symbol of a cross on top of what looked like a mountain. Inside were some dollar bills and a small card sporting the same logo, with some telephone numbers and a name in bold characters:

**_Jesse Adams, MD_ **

  
The taxi stopped outside an area of woodland surrounded by wrought-iron railings that went on for as long as I could see. I couldn’t believe there was a  _wood_  in the middle of the city.  _But why are we stopping here?_  
“We need to go to the DPRC” Isaac said, leaning forward to speak to the driver.  
“This is it - Blue City” the driver pointed towards a big black wrought iron gate. It was wide open, but it was getting dark and I couldn’t see what was on the other side. It seemed strange that there was nobody around.  
“Is it easy to find?” Isaac asked the driver.  
The man laughed. “Oh, you’ll find it all right”.  
  
  
Not without some difficulties, we managed to get Zac out of the car and standing; Isaac took our brother’s hand and put it behind his neck, to rest on his shoulder; I did the same on the other side and we managed to get moving, taking our baby brother’s weight off his feet and onto our shoulders. We crossed the gate and stepped into the obscurity of the park.  _Please don’t let it be too fa_ \--

\-- before we knew it, we’d walked through the gate and intosome sort of weird aluminium tunnel, about twenty yards long, with strip lighting running all the way along the ceiling. At the other end, I could see a thick black plastic curtain; some light filtered through the split in the middle and as we got closer, the indistinct hubbub of voices and human activity outside reverberated through the metal structure and became louder. The plastic strands of the curtain clung to us like thick, black tentacles as we squeezed through the tunnel’s opening - and then we were outside.  Flood lights lit up a sea of blue, triangular tents, neatly arranged side by side like rows of corn.  _Blue City_. I looked up, but could see no stars, only a strange glow that gave the sky a burnt, coppery haze and made it look as if charged with static.  
  
I thought of the sky over the dry, desertic expanse that surrounded the Compound.  _Most nights at the Compound are so clear that the stars barely fit in the sky and you’d believe you were in space_. That was something I had always taken for granted. Maybe there was something from our old life that I would miss, after all.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 5 - 'Watch Over Me'  
> POV - Zac  
> Word Count: 2,782

Our first night at Blue City felt like the longest night of my life.

They said it was too late to register for papers and they wouldn’t even look at the letter that Jesse had written for us. They said that the person in charge had already gone home for the day. _Home_ , they’d said.Home for me was our tiny apartment at the far end of the Compound. We’d lived there since our mother’s wedding to _him_ over ten years ago. Isaac was already working by then and he’d managed to get a place normally reserved for sanctioned couples, so that the three of us could stay together. It was really just one big room with a small kitchen built into a corner and a bathroom; but I loved the feeling of turning the key and opening the door to familiar smells and, most of the time, to my brothers’ voices. Now, it seemed such a luxury to be able to go home for the day, when I hadn’t been back for over three months. All my stuff was there - my drawings, my journals, all the birthday presents that Taylor and Isaac had given me over the years, things that they’d known I wanted and that they’d somehow managed to find or make for me. Like on my eighteenth birthday, when Isaac gave me a wooden easel that he’d made himself, to use with the set of oil paints that Taylor had got me - although he refused to tell me where he got them from.

I’d kept the empty tubes, after squeezing out every last ounce of their contents, in a big box that I kept under the bed. Taylor had tried to get me some more, but in the end I’d had to make do with leftover pots of emulsion that Isaac would bring home from work for me, risking a trip to the Discipline Officer and a possible stint as an RTC. I really missed all my things. I really missed having a place to call home.

That night we were sent to a communal tent where they said we could sleep, and I let my brothers guide me as we walked through various degrees of shadows. I felt Taylor tense up when we stopped and stood in front of our temporary shelter, leaving me to wonder how awful it must have been. I was kind of relieved that I couldn’t see where we were going and so I was spared a lot of worry, my blindness acting as a shield to our miserable situation; but at the same time I felt guilty for not being able to share that burden with my brothers. Although, it wouldn’t have made much difference, anyway. I was pretty useless even when I had my eyesight. I’d been assigned to several Processing Officers over the years and every one of them had failed me in the first processing levels, and I was held back until I barely scraped through Level 2 - and even then, they’d made it clear that they’d put me through so that I could make myself useful and work at the Officers’ Club. I don’t know why I struggled so much with processing. It seemed to come really natural to my brothers - especially to Isaac, who always seemed able to filter so easily, never letting any unwanted responses surface and get in the way of his own path to Purity. And Taylor...well, Taylor can handle pretty much anything you throw at him. He has an innate ability to read people, and it served him well when he worked his way through the programme. He somehow always knew what the Processing Officer wanted to hear, and would deliver it to them.  When it came to his training, it was never actually clear if Taylor actually _got it_ , or if it was some kind of self-convincing act on his part. And if my brother could convince himself, then all he had to do was to look at you in that way that makes everything else suddenly disappear, and you knew you didn’t stand a chance.

My brother’s eyes - I missed them more than anything. They were all I could think of when I was strapped down to the bed in the Detox Center; I’d try to remember their exact shade of blue; the length of his eyelashes; the creases around his eyes. I wondered how his face had changed in the last two years and I wished I could count all the little tiny lines; how many more had formed because of me? The only thing I’d ever been good at in my life was to make my brothers worry; in fact, their whole lives had revolved around making things better for me. And now, to get me out of trouble, we had ended up in a tent, in a strange city, on the Outside, and I couldn’t even go to the bathroom by myself. I felt so fucking pathetic and yet, after the last three months, it was such a relief to let my brothers take care of me. Night after night I had tortured myself wondering - would I ever see them again? And now they were there by my side and I’d never - no, _they_ ’d never let _me_ go. And every time I felt Isaac’s hand on the back of my neck, or Taylor’s arm around my shoulder, it was like an unspoken promise renewed.

The smell of _people_ was overwhelming inside the communal tent. I knew that I must have smelled pretty bad myself, although I didn’t notice it anymore. But this was like livestock and feet and that sweet, sickly, soupy smell of sweat that always makes you sniff your own armpits to check that it’s not you. My breathing became faster and my heart started to pound against my chest as if trying to escape. And the noise - _the noise_ of all those people put together, the coughing and clearing of throats, the shifting of bodies - it sounded as if someone had turned up the volume inside my head and every sound was spiralling down to my ear canal and piercing my eardrums. I turned to Taylor but my mouth was so dry that I couldn’t speak. _I need clean air._ I tried to turn back, struggling to free myself from my brothers’ grip and attempting to take a couple of steps on my legs, but my knees buckled. Isaac caught me in his arms. “Shhhhh” - his warm breath silenced the vortex of noises in my ear - “Shhhhhh”. My elder brother really is a man of few words, but that one sound was all I needed, and as he rubbed my back gently with his open palm I felt my heart slow down a little and I took a few tentative breaths, resting my head on his shoulder. “Shhhhh” he whispered again, and this time I could feel his lips resting on my earlobe for a couple of seconds. _He would never let me go_.

We found a bit of free space as close as possible to the entrance, and although I couldn’t see their exchange of looks, I could tell that my brothers had sacrificed warmth so that I could get a draft of fresh air coming from the tent’s door flap. Isaac helped me down on the makeshift bed that Taylor had made with the three rubber mats that we had been allowed to borrow from the camp’s reception desk. They were thin, and I could feel the lumpy earth under my back, but at least they were dry. The smooth fabric of the sleeping bag swished around me and I heard Taylor zip it down and open it out to cover us.  It wasn’t going to be big enough for all three of us.

“You two have the sleeping bag and I’ll have the blanket”, had offered Isaac. But Taylor wouldn’t let him. “We’ll spread it sideways, and cover our feet with the blanket. And Zac is short anyway so his feet aren’t exactly going to stick out” - he said, and I knew that he was only trying to make us laugh. It worked, because Isaac chuckled as he laid down next to me.

I curled up to face Taylor, the way we always slept, a childhood habit from when all three of us shared a bed; it was our way of turning our backs to the rest of the world, and I guess, in part, to Isaac too. It’s not that we tried to exclude him, but he was always so _serious_ , telling us to be quiet and go to sleep when surely he must have known that that was the only time, _our_ only time to have a bit of fun and talk about dumb stuff and hug or simply snuggle close. As we got older and started to go through our processing training, night times became even more precious, and our closeness the only thing that seemed natural; the only part of our daily life that didn’t revolve around overcoming our ‘human responses’. We had nothing else to live for.  And night after night, as I was strapped to the bed with the sole company of my own ragged breathing, I would go back to those moments with Taylor and leave my own personal horror behind, and somehow I’d once again make it to morning.

But that night, as soon as Taylor’s head had hit the mat, he was fast asleep. I tried to do the same, but our surroundings were unsettling me. Save for a brief spell in the staff quarters when I worked at the Club, I had never had to share a room with anyone other than my brothers. The thought of all those people also lying down practically inches away, made my eyelids twitch every time I tried to close them. I was utterly exhausted, but wide awake.

I reached for his arm and gave it a light squeeze, hoping he’d wake up and hold me. He’d always been a light sleeper - my exact opposite. My brothers always joked that I could sleep through earthquakes - which I did, on a couple of occasions, back at the Compound. But this time, Taylor seemed intent on staying asleep. I inched a little bit closer and put my hand on his face, tracing his features with my thumb, feeling his eyebrows, his nose, his cheekbones. I could almost see him. I moved my hand down to his neck and under his coat, and felt his heartbeat; I rubbed his chest gently, drawing circles around his heart. _Please Taylor, wake up_. He stirred for a moment but his eyes stayed firmly shut. _Why won’t you wake up?,_ I heard myself whimper in frustration but I couldn’t help it - there was no way I could spend a whole night in that place, awake, and without the comfort of my brother’s touch. I ran the palm of my hand up again and around his neck, cupping the back of his head until I could grab a fistful of hair. I tugged at it, not too hard, but I was determined to get a reaction.

“Hmmmff” - my brother shook his head and swatted my hand away before adjusting his position to lie on his back. _WAKE UP, TAY,_ I whined, tears beginning to build up in my eyes, and I don’t know if it was out of panic, or out of sheer disbelief at being ignored. I gripped his bicep with my fingers and I was just about to brutally shake my brother out of his sleep, when an arm reached across my chest and pulled me back.

Isaac.

“I can’t sleep, Ike” I said, turning to face him.

“I know” - he said softly, stroking my hair. I shifted a little bit closer to him and grabbed his arm under the smoothness of the sleeping bag, tightening my fingers around the muscle, and in response, my brother put his own arm around me to hold me closer. The irrational spectre of loneliness and abandonment gradually ebbed away, and I thought that my heart would literally explode with gratitude, the same I’d felt for that doctor, only a few hours earlier.  Jesse had made me feel so…special. I replayed the scene in my head, savouring the way in which he had kept talking to me, how he had warned me every time he was about to stick a needle in my skin; how he’d stop for a few moments when he saw that it was hurting too much. His gentleness was such a contrast to the treatment I had received at the Detox Center. There were no warnings there, no breaks for breath, just one humiliating moment after another, and I shuddered as I tried to push down one particularly graphic, stubborn memory, until I snapped out of it and brought my thoughts back to Jesse. He was different. He had treated me like I was really there. Since I’d gone blind people never addressed me directly - they’d speak to Taylor or Isaac, _‘tell him that….’_ , _‘does he….’_ \- and I’d want to scream _‘I’M BLIND, NOT DEAF’_ , but I guess it was easier for people to completely ignore me.

Jesse seemed to really care about me, but maybe that was because it was his job? But it couldn’t have been his job to bring us food. I was sure doctors didn't do that. He’d given us _chocolate_.I _loved_ chocolate. How did he know that? He seemed to understand a lot about me but he barely knew my name. Maybe where he came from people were different; maybe they were kinder to each other. I wondered if the place where he came from was very far away, and I tried to imagine us going there, but drew a blank. I wanted to picture him in my mind, but the only image I could produce was Taylor. I’d noticed that Jesse smelled really good - or maybe it just seemed that way because I felt so filthy and disgusting that being close to anyone clean made me dizzy. He’d leaned over me a couple of times and I’d felt strands of his hair move slightly around my face, leaving a faint trail of coconut. The light in the hospital cubicle was very bright, because I could make out Jesse’s fuzzy outline, and I thought he might have long hair. I wished I could still _see._ The darkness was so oppressive. Just the thought of it brought me back to the stinking tent and the choir of snoring and other people’s breaths. Isaac’s breathing sounded a bit too steady now - was he still awake? I gave his arm another little squeeze, and he rubbed my back with his hand in small, circular movements that reassured me. Isaac had never been particularly affectionate towards me. I knew he cared, but he was always so controlled, and that in turn made me feel like I couldn’t hug him or touch him or even have play fights when we were little. He just wasn’t like Taylor. But now, away from the Compound, he seemed to be so different, and warm. It was as if he had suddenly stopped filtering, and was allowing his human essence to flood back in him; and I was hit by this amazing sense of wonder as I realized that I was seeing a glimpse of my elder brother’s _mortal soul_ for the first time since we were children.

He held me close all night. I felt his breath on my face and the warmth of his hand on my back. I listened to the rhythm of his breathing and tuned into his every intake of air.  I kept a hand over his chest to feel it rise and then recede like waves. When Isaac dozed off, I shook him. When he dived under, I pulled him up for air. When the embrace of sleep and its offer of escape would become too strong for him to resist, I ran my hands over his face to get him back and stay with _me_. I whimpered and wriggled and squirmed every time I felt my elder brother fall asleep; and every time, he forced himself to wake up, and made sure I knew he was back with me, stroking my hair, rubbing my back, pulling me a little closer still. Eventually, I drifted off, and only then we were both able to get some rest. Until Taylor’s voice awoke us, and then we were back in a communal tent, in the middle of a City park, cold, hungry and dirty, and far away from home.


	6. Boulevard of Broken Dreams

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> POV: Isaac  
> Chapter Word Count: 6,774

  
“Ike! Zac! Wake up”

Taylor’s voice felt like cold water on my face and suddenly, I was awake again. Had I been asleep at all?   


“Come on guys, let’s get out of here. I can’t bear another minute in this place” my brother said, as he looked at the sprawl of sleeping bodies covering the entire tent floor. _You can’t bear it,_ I thought to myself. _At least you were asleep._ I must have had a couple of hours’ sleep, at most. Zac had kept me up all night, waking me up every time I was beginning to drift off. If this had happened only a few months ago, I would have told him to stop being such a big baby. But I could see that he was scared. I mean, he was really, really scared. _I guess that’s the result of being locked up and strapped down to the bed, completely on your own, for three months. What have they done to my little brother?_ I was going to have to find out at some point - to make him talk about it, but that was a job for another day. Now I had a bigger task at hand, and that was to try and wake him up.

“Zac? Zac? Wake up little bro” I said to him, stroking his hair. _No reaction_.

“Zac, wake up baby” said Taylor, a little bit louder, giving his shoulder a gentle shake.

“Hmmmf I’mtiredletmesleep” Zac mumbled, his eyes still completely shut. _Now you want to sleep_ , I thought as I rolled my eyes, turning my head to the other side to hide my true feelings from Taylor. This was going to be hard work.

“Wait, I know!” Taylor said, his eyes suddenly lighting up. “Ike, pass me your bag”. I hesitated, but Taylor had his arm already stretched out. I picked up my duffel bag and handed it to him. _I think I know what he’s got in mind_ , I thought, watching my brother rummage inside the bag until he found what he was looking for. He leaned over our little brother’s still comatose body.

“Zac…Zaccy…? Do you want some breakfast?” Taylor said, in that over-enthusiastic way that some people use when they talk to their dogs.

“Hmmmm?” - a slit opened between Zac’s eyelids. Finally, we were getting somewhere.

“How about some chocolate for breakfast, Zac?” Taylor said, unveiling his secret weapon. Zac’s eyes immediately opened. _Result_.

“Chocolate?” our little brother instantly perked up. He propped himself up on his elbow. “We still got some?” he added, and it was as if his day had suddenly brightened up with a sense of renewed hope. Renewed hope made of sugar. Taylor looked at me and the corners of his mouth twisted into a smile as he set to unwrap the candy bar.  By now, Zac was sitting up and completely awake; he was almost holding his breath with expectation as he ran the tip of his tongue over his upper lip. _He’s licking his lips!_ I couldn’t help letting out a little laugh. Yes, my brother had definitely turned into a big baby, but at least it didn’t take much to make him happy. Which, under the current circumstances, was definitely a good thing.

Taylor snapped about a third off the chocolate bar and placed the rest on Zac’s hand - where it stayed for less than a split second before disappearing into our little brother’s mouth. _I could watch him eat chocolate all day,_ I thought. _One day when things get better for us I’ll buy you all the chocolate you want_.

“Here, Ike, have some” said Taylor. He had divided what was left into two small squares and handed one to me.

“Are you sure we should?” I said in a low voice, looking questioningly at him and then at the tiny piece in front of me. “He kind of…needs it more” I added, looking at Zac demolishing his portion. He was so skinny.

“We need to eat too, Ike”, Taylor said, his voice so gentle. “We’re no good to him if we don’t have enough energy to stand up”.

“I know…it’s just…”

“We still have half a sandwich anyway” Taylor continued “He can have that a little later when he’s hungry again”

“I’m still hungry now” Zac said quietly, as he licked his fingers. The chocolate had already disappeared. Taylor closed his eyes for a moment and laughed; then, he reached into the paper bag and extracted the triangle of plastic containing the remaining of the day before’s sandwich, and handed it to him.

 _Taylor_ , _I’m so proud to have you as my brother,_ I thought as I watched what was left of our food provisions disappear down my little brother’s mouth in a matter of seconds.

“Well then” Taylor said. “Can we get out of here, now?”

\--------

Jesse’s letter had the desired effect and we were allocated our own tent, a list titled ‘DPRC - RULES’ and three plastic wrist bands: blue for Taylor and me, yellow for Zac, because that’s what ‘disabled’ people got. _Disabled_? A young woman with a ‘Volunteer’ badge escorted us to our tent -  Number: 18A. We stood in front of the small, triangular, blue nylon structure, staring at _our new home_. It couldn’t have been more than 4, 4.5 feet tall. Was that all I could do for my brothers? But before I had time to really think about our new living arrangements, Taylor had unzipped the tent open and thrown his bag in. “The last one gets the room in the basement!” he said, before disappearing inside.

“I don’t want the room in the basement” - I heard Zac say. I turned to look at him, amazed: it was the first time I’d heard him attempt a joke since we’d been reunited at the Compound. Maybe my _real_ little brother was slowly coming back.

“Get in quickly then, cos you ain’t getting any special favours” I said to him, and gently pushed him towards the tent’s opening. “But I bet Taylor’s already nabbed the best room.”

After the uncomfortable night in the communal tent, our new living quarters seemed the height of luxury. We couldn’t stand up inside, and there was just about enough space for the three of us to lie down side by side; but we were used to sharing a bed from when we were kids and lived with our mother, and besides, right now, even if we’d had more space, we would have still chosen to stay as close as possible, to make Zac feel safe, sleeping between me and Taylor. _Is this really about him?_ I had missed the intimacy I’d shared with Zac and Taylor at night time before we got our own place. Even if they’d gradually become closer and I’d inevitably been excluded from their private moments, it was still better than nothing. Then, when we moved into the studio apartment at the back of the Compound, it had been an unspoken agreement  that I was going to take the convertible couch and they were going to have the double bed. And although we were all in the same room, I had learned to shut out their presence when they wanted some privacy, and I could more or less make myself go to sleep on command - possibly the most useful skills I had learnt as part of Processing training. The hypnosis module had been the one I’d got the highest grades for - I’d put so much effort into it out of a need for self-preservation - or was it desperation? Either way, sending myself to sleep had been my own _salvation,_ a shield I could wear to stop being stabbed through the heart night after night. It had worked very well for many years. Would I still need it?

\-------

Zac was soon asleep again inside the safety of the tent, giving Taylor and me the chance to go through the rules handout. We sat on either side of him, speaking as quietly as we could so as not to wake him. Curled up between us, his thin little body zipped up inside the green sleeping bag, our little brother reminded me of a butterfly’s chrysalis. I played with a strand of his greasy brown hair that had escaped from the shiny fabric, and looked at the sheet of paper in front of me.

“It says here that there’s a mess tent where we can get a meal a day every evening at six. That’s something, at least” - I said

“Good, because I have no idea how long Jesse’s money’s going to last us. I don’t know how much anything costs out here.”

“How much have we got?” I didn’t know the value of anything, either.

“40 dollars. And a few coins left over from the bus fare” - he frowned, biting his lower lip.

“Well, we’ll try and get to a store and see what we can buy, and then figure out what we need the most and take it from there, I guess.”

Taylor ran a hand through his blond hair, which now looked almost brown from the grease and dirt accumulated during our journey. He sighed. “It wasn’t meant to go this way. If that guy Tigg had showed up, we’d have a job by now and we wouldn’t have to worry about just ….surviving like this.” his voice was laden with frustration.

“I know Tay. But at least we got out, right? What were we going to do, take him back to the D.C.?” I said, gesturing at our little brother. “Oh, sorry Zaccy, but you’re going to have to go back to your cell, after all?” - I added, instantly regretting the tone of my last few words.

“Don’t raise your voice at me” Taylor snapped.

I closed my eyes and rubbed them with my fingers until purple shapes began to appear over the black canvas of my eyelids. “I’m sorry Tay, I didn’t mean it. I’m just …tired. I didn’t get much sleep last night”.

Taylor’s voice softened. “Oh. I’m…sorry. Why? Were you not feeling well?”

“No…I don’t know. It was just too crowded in there I guess. I’ll be ok now that we’ve got our new luxury apartment” I said, forcing myself to smile. I wasn’t going to tell him that Zac had kept me awake all night, just so that I could make him feel bad. Knowing Taylor, he would have made it his job to be on Zac Watch every night for the rest of our lives. He was just like that - always putting everybody else first and always doing it as if it was no effort at all. But I knew what he’d done for Zac in the past - difficult, uncomfortable things - and I wasn’t going to let him shoulder all that responsibility anymore. I was going to take care of my younger brothers in whatever way I could.

“ _The Shower Block is open from 07:00 AM to 7:00 PM. Each guest is allowed to borrow one towel for the duration of his/her stay -_ Finally we’re going to be able to clean up. I stink”.

“ So do I” - Taylor wrinkled his nose as he sniffed under his armpits. “But what are we going to do about Zac? You heard what Jesse said, we can’t get his dressings wet for at least a few days”.

“I know…I know…” I looked up at the blue nylon canopy only inches from my nose, and rubbed invisible knots at the base of my head. _Why is everything so complicated right now?_ “We’ll see if we can get a bucket and then we’ll have to give him a sponge bath. We’ll make sure we don’t get his bandages wet. It’s got to be better than nothing, right?” I said, lifting the greasy strand of my brother’s hair that I had been playing with, holding it between my index finger and thumb. “Look, it will soon stand up by itself” I went on, letting go of the hair, which fell back limply onto Zac’s head.

“Eugh” Taylor pulled a face, but he was laughing. Nothing about our little brother could ever disgust us. “Shame we haven’t got any shampoo”, he mused, studying the greasy brown locks that stuck out of the sleeping bag.

I reached for my bag and rooted around its contents, fishing out every item one by one until I felt a small plastic bottle under my hand. I pushed it in front of Taylor’s face.

“Who said we don’t have any shampoo?”

\--------

Later in the day, we made our way to the mess tent. It wasn’t ideal to get Zac back on his feet, but we all really, really needed to eat. I was feeling tired and dizzy, and I could tell that Taylor felt the same, judging by the ashen colour of his skin and the dark shadows circling his eyes. I dreaded to think what I must have looked like and for once, I was grateful that there were no mirrors around. Back a the Compound, I had learnt to look after my limited wardrobe, so that I always looked as smart as I could, even if I spent most of my time on construction sites; my mother had taught me how to wash, mend and iron pretty much anything. As our diet didn’t allow for excesses, my weight had stayed almost the same since I’d entered my twenties, and as a result, I could still fit into the same two of suits that I’d bought with my tokens when I’d started to work. And now, in dirty jeans and woolly jacket, with 3-day stubble and greasy hair, I no longer felt _like me_.

We joined the line outside another big communal tent, hoping that it wouldn’t move too slowly, as Zac wasn’t going to last very long standing on his legs. He held on to my arm and Taylor’s, taking small, unsteady steps forward with us, as we followed the line snaking towards the tent’s entrance.  I glanced around and couldn’t help noticing that most people queuing seemed to be roughly our age, and male. There were a few couples, some with children, but mostly we were surrounded by other men in their twenties and early thirties; and judging by Taylor’s furtive glances to his immediate vicinity, he had noticed it, too.

“Have you seen how it’s mainly guys around here?” I said.

“Yeah….”Taylor narrowed his eyes, the way he did when he was trying to figure something out. “And they all seem to be quite…”

“…young” I said, finishing my brother’s sentence. “Like the people we saw from the bus” I added.

Taylor had opened his mouth to say something, when someone pushed us from behind.

“Hey dudes! Thanks for holding a place for me, I got that thing you wanted from the tent!” - a voice shouted in our ears. It belonged to a pair of arms that had suddenly come to rest on our backs - and startled Zac.

“Nice try…!” another voice piped up from the back of the line. “Go back to the start of the line!”

We turned around. A thin guy with chin-length black hair was still somehow attached to our backs, and still talking.

“Shut the fuck up!” he said to whoever had spoken from somewhere at the back “These are my room mates!” he said, turning back to us - “I’ve just been back to the tent to get _that thing_ you asked!” he added, raising his eyebrows and manically flashing big, slightly cat-like green eyes to us. “You know, _that thing_?” _What thing? Is he insane_?

“Oh, that _thing_!” - Taylor was quicker than me. “Yeah, thank you buddy, for…doing that” he said, nodding slowly at the guy who had now walked around us, placing himself right on Taylor’s side and patting his shoulder. _What on earth …?_

“Thanks for doing that dude” he said to Taylor in a much lower voice now. “I really didn’t fancy standing in line for another forty minutes”. _Oh_.

I stared at him with a mix of anger and disbelief. He’d just used us to jump the line. If we were made to queue again because of him, I would _kill him_.

“It’s ok man, no one’s gonna know” he said to me, guessing what I was thinking. Had I already become so easy to read? Maybe filtering wasn’t such a bad thing sometimes. I made a mental note to keep filtering until we’d figured out how things worked here on the Outside.

“I’m Dylan”, he said, pointing to himself. I guess formal introductions would have given his game away. “You guys new?”

“That obvious?” asked Taylor, cringing slightly.

“Well you fell for that, didn’t ya?” Dylan said, sounding quite satisfied with his little trick.

His voice was strangely feminine, in a raspy, abrasive way, not entirely pleasant. He looked a bit like a girl, in actual fact - maybe because of the black hair framing his pointy face, or maybe because of his lips, which seemed to be impossibly pink. And those green eyes looked too big for his face. He wouldn’t have made a particularly pretty girl, I thought; just a strange, boyish one.

“So…what’s your names?” - he was asking all three of us but I could see that he was staring curiously at Zac. I pulled my little brother a little closer to me.

“I’m Isaac, and these are my brothers Zachary” I said, pointing at them respectively “and Taylor” I said, having decided that some formality was overdue.

“What’s the matter with Zachary then?” he asked me, still looking at Zac. Obviously, tact wasn’t Dylan’s strongest point. Our little brother squirmed under my arm, and turning his head to my side, rested the top of his forehead on my shoulder; he groaned quietly - but loud enough for me to hear.

“Zac…he’s blind. And he’s been…ill” Taylor said, wisely keeping our explanation vague. 

“Oh, right” - said Dylan, taking in the yellow wrist band wrapped around our little brother’s bandaged wrist. “Sorry to hear that, dude” he said to him, putting a hand on his shoulder in a friendly gesture, but only succeeding in making Zac jerk his arm away and shuffle even closer to me. “S…orry”…Dylan mumbled, his hand still awkwardly hanging mid-air.

“No…it’s just that…it takes him a while to trust people he doesn’t know” said Taylor. _It didn’t take him very long to trust Jesse_ , I thought to myself. “Anyway, how long have you been in this place?” my brother added, swiftly changing the subject. We were almost at the front of the queue.

“Three weeks” said Dylan. “Hopefully won’t be here much longer”. He added, flicking a band of hair off his face. He stuffed his hands deep into the pockets of his black leather jacket as he shuffled restlessly from one foot to the other.

“Where will you go? Have you got a job?” Taylor’s tone was casual, but I could see his mind already at work, trying to extract information out of this guy.

“Well, kind of…” Dylan said, cocking his head to one side. “I’ve got a plan, _anyway_ ” he added, his voice sounding like a rake on gravel.

“A plan?” - Taylor asked, this time without trying to hide his curiosity.

 _“ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR, YOU LOT, CAN COME IN!_ \- barked one of the volunteers standing at the entrance.

Our curiosity would have to wait - we were finally inside the mess tent.

The smell of cooked food instantly hit me and made my stomach rumble in anticipation; and as if on cue, Zac’s stomach growled back. When was the last time our little brother had eaten proper meal? He’d always had a big appetite, something that had forced Taylor to become very creative when preparing meals out of our weekly rations.  We never went hungry - well, we never starved -  but we had to be disciplined. But that didn’t apply to Zac. If he wanted seconds, he’d get seconds; if he wanted something sweet, Taylor would whip up some home-made dessert out of whatever was in the kitchen;  he’d make him candy from melted butter, sugar and some instant cocoa. A cracker, thinly spread with cream cheese and jelly would make an acceptable cheese cake. We were well aware that we were spoiling our brother, and that by doing so, we were clearly contravening official Flock policy on compulsion, but there was an unspoken rule between us that when it came to Zac, all rules could _happily_ be ignored. And breaking the rules for our little brother made me and Taylor very happy indeed.

\----

The sight of the bowl in front of me made me even more conscious of how much I was missing Taylor’s cooking. Once we’d got inside the mess tent, we had queued for another 20 minutes for a small bowl of rice and beans and mug of some kind of cloudy hot soup with tiny bits of vegetables floating around. We had finally sat down at the far end of a long table; Dylan had attached himself to Taylor, and I’d had to resign myself to the idea that we were going to have company for dinner. Now, as I stared at what was supposed to be our main meal, I came to realise that things were going to be much, much harder than I had expected. My own rumbling stomach would have to learn to wait, because our main priority from now on would be to feed our little brother first, and ourselves after. My eyes met Taylor’s; he looked so worn out, and overwhelmed. _I must be a big brother to him too._ _I should have taken some of that weight off his shoulders. I should have looked after him better. I should have done more. I must do more._ Our hands both reached for the bowl that I’d just placed in front of Zac. “I’ve got this, Tay” I said, as I topped up the rice in the bowl with a couple of spoonfuls from mine.

“It’s ok, I don’t need all of this” - and before I could stop him, my brother had already spooned some more into our little brother’s plate. Dylan gave us a slightly amused, quizzical look, which I decided to ignore as I placed the bowl back in front of Zac. I picked up my little brother’s left hand and wrapped his fingers around the spoon; his skin was cold. I would have liked to warm his hand with mine,  but within seconds, Zac was shovelling spoonfuls of rice into his mouth. _The day he loses his appetite, then I’ll start to worry_ , I thought.

“So, Dylan, how do things work around here?” Taylor asked. He was obviously determined to make use of our new ...friend.

“Yes..…can we come and go? Are we allowed out into the city?” I added.

“Well, yes, we can leave during the day but there _is_ a six o’clock curfew…although…” he paused and lowered his voice “it’s easy to get around that if you don’t use the main gate anyway.” - he shrugged.

“As long as we can go out during the day… do you know where we can find a shop? We need to get a few things for Zac” Taylor said.

“A shop?” Dylan laughed and looked at us, in turn, as if he was expecting us to laugh, too. _What’s so funny?_ “Dude, we’re in the middle of the city. There are, like, _thousands_ of shops out there.” he said. I didn’t like the way he was looking at us, now, as if he was seeing us through a lens. Like insects.

“Well, we only need _one_ ” said Taylor, putting another spoonful of rice in his mouth. _Well said, Taylor._

“Riiight…well, what kind of stuff do you want to buy?” Dylan said, still smirking.

“Socks, underwear, maybe some food if we have any money leftover” I said. “We don’t know how much anything costs around here”.

Dylan’s smirk disappeared and he leaned towards me, cocking his head to one side slightly, in a small, jerky, bird-like movement.

“How can you _not_ know? Where do you guys come from?”

I glanced at Taylor. _Do we tell him?_ My brother blinked slowly and mouthed an imperceptible _‘no’_. “We’re from down south. It’s kind of a long story. Do you think you can take us somewhere where we can buy that stuff?” he asked Dylan, changing the subject.

“S..sure, when do you wanna go?”

“How about tomorrow” I stepped in. “Today we have something more important to do”.

“Oh yeah, and what’s that?” Dylan’s eyes widened with curiosity.

“We’re going to get our brother cleaned up”.

\----

Dylan led us to the back of the mess tent where he somehow talked a volunteer into giving us three large food tubs that had lids and handles like buckets. Zac’s bandaged wrists looked convincing enough, but it hadn’t escaped me how the volunteer had taken a few steps back while we talked to her, and how she seemed overtly keen on finding the buckets, as if she was trying to get rid of us as quickly as possible. Of course, I thought, Zac’s… _scent_. I no longer noticed it, but I laughed to myself at the thought that my beautiful little brother had become a very powerful Outsider repellent. _Who would have thought_.

Back in the tent, we covered the floor with a large black trash bag that we had ripped open - another Dylan find. I had to admit that he had turned out to be pretty useful so far - he  surely knew his way around the camp and most people seemed to know him, although it didn’t seem to be clear as to _why …_ Something about him nagged me but I hadn’t met enough Outsiders to know what was considered normal behaviour and what was plain odd. I pushed the thought at the back of my mind and tried to focus on the task at hand - which wasn’t going to be easy in the confined space of the tent. We’d come back from a visit to the shower block with three bucketfuls of hot water and our allocation of one towel each; there was no way we could have washed Zac in those communal showers - and not just because of his dressings. Dylan had warned us about the place; he’d said that if possible, when we went for our showers we should go in pairs. When I’d pointed out that one of us would have to stay in the tent with Zac, he’d said that he would come along. _“I might be only a skinny dude but at least I know who to avoid in this place”_ he’d said, and I couldn’t help thinking that it sounded rather ominous.

“Zac, we’re going to help you clean up now, buddy, ok?” - Taylor said as he stroked our little brother’s hair. “It’s going to be a bit cold but we’ll try to be as quick as we can, okay?”

“Okay…I smell really bad, don’t I…?” said Zac, in a soft murmur that sounded steeped in shame.

“Bad? No…, you’re not that bad buddy, honestly” I lied “And anyway, it keeps the Outsiders away” I added, managing to get a little laugh from my brothers, even if what I’d just said now was actually true.

Taylor helped our little brother out of his pants, as I pulled up his hooded top and t-shirt to avoid getting them wet. We got him to lie down on the plastic sheet we’d put down at the farthest corner of the tent - as far away as possible from where we would later have to sleep, although I had almost resigned myself to a night of sleeping on wet ground.  I’d prepared everything we were going to need: shampoo, a bar of soap, which I had also remembered to pack, a few washcloths made from one of the towels, a comb and my shaving kit. Maybe we’d still have enough warm water at the end to give my little brother a shave and make him look…more _human_.I remembered teaching Zac to shave, when he was still a spotty teenager with dubious hygiene habits. Taylor had tried to show him a few times, but our brother had quickly gotten bored of the procedure, which was far too high maintenance for him at a time when washing his hair was already a major event. So, one day, I’d left the bathroom door open as I shaved - something that I never did, especially as the bathroom was the only room in our apartment that afforded us any privacy at all. As I had predicted, Zac had soon wandered in, curious to see what I was doing, and he’d sat on the bath, watching me. Once I was finished, I’d asked him - as casually as possible - if he wanted to try it on himself. Soon Zac’s face was covered in shaving foam, and he’d let my hand cover his fingers, which were clumsily gripping my razor, and together we’d guided the blade along his skin in a downward motion, removing the sparse fuzz that had grown haphazardly over his chin and upper lip in recent months, not only shaving my little brother’s first beard but also marking his passage from boy to man. I’d felt so privileged for having been able to share that moment with him, and grateful that for once, without his realising, he had chosen me over Taylor.

We set to wash our little brother’s skinny body bit by bit - working as fast as we could, because it was late afternoon and without the sun’s rays hitting the nylon roof, the tent was rapidly getting colder. I ran the warm washcloth along the back of his thighs, and for the first time since our escape I was able to see the extent of the damage that three months of neglect had inflicted on Zac. His skin was broken from all the lying down, and I don’t know what was more painful for me and Taylor to witness - the sight of our brother’s damaged body or the short, barely-contained hisses that were coming from his lips every time we pressed the washcloths over a particularly sore spot. We rinsed the cloths into the same bucket, and watched the water gradually take a gross, dark yellow tinge; _no wonder he smells so bad_ , I thought. _His legs and his backside are literally covered in pee_. _Those sores must have stung like mad._ _How could they do this to my brother? How could I let it go on for so long?_

“Ike” Taylor said, gently placing his hand on my arm. His eyes told me that he knew what I was feeling. He always did, somehow. “He’s going to be okay, you know? It’s all over now. Let’s just get him cleaned up”. I put my hand over his and held it there for a moment. _I am so glad I have two brothers, because I really couldn’t go through this on my own._

Once his lower body was clean enough, we helped our little brother back into his pants and out of his hooded top and t-shirt.

“I’m really cold” he protested.

“I know baby, but it won’t take long”, said Taylor, and he placed a quick, gentle kiss on Zac’s peeling lips. I plunged my hand into the bucket, half hoping for the relief of burning hot water on my skin, but of course, by now it was only lukewarm. _I know I should be happy for them_.

Once we felt satisfied that we’d wiped out several weeks’ worth of sweat and grime from our little brother’s skin, we set out to wash his hair. The water was getting cold but we both knew that it was now or…when? We certainly didn’t want to put him through this ordeal any time soon. And even if I knew that he was going to be more comfortable soon, my little brother still was half naked and wet, shivering inside a tent. I wrapped a towel around him and gathered him in my arms, rubbing my hands up and down over the towel to warm him up.

“How are we going to do this, Ike?” - Taylor said, looking at the buckets of rapidly cooling water in front of us.

“How about we get him to dip his head into the water, shampoo as best as we can and then rinse in the other bucket. Obviously not _that one_ ” _-_ I said, pointing at the bucket with the yellow water - the one we’d used to rinse the cloths in.

“All right, you hold him and I wash him?” - he said, dragging the bucket of soapy water closer to me.

“Is that ok with you, Zac?” I asked him, still rubbing his arms. He nodded - or maybe he just shivered harder. I held my little brother in my arms as I lowered his body down, dipping his hair into the water. He shuddered, and I wrapped the towel a little bit tighter across his chest. “We’re almost done, buddy”, I said. “You’ll smell real nice soon”. I watched Taylor rub some shampoo into our little brother’s tangled hair, and work it into a lather; he was moving fast but as gently as he could, and I knew that it was the cold that was making Zac squirm in my lap, rather than the stray drops of water that were occasionally landing on his face. “Are we done yet?” he whined. “I’m so cold”. “That’s it Zaccy” - my brother said, wringing the water out of Zac’s hair into the bucket “A quick rinse and you’re done” he added, swiftly swapping the buckets round. As I guided my brother’s head into the cleaner water to allow Taylor to rinse him off, a little impatient whimper escaped from Zac’s lips; _you’ve really had enough now, haven’t you?_ I should have felt some frustration at my brother’s lack of understanding that what we were doing was for his own good. I should have told him to stop acting like a big baby; I should have said, _Zac, buddy, you’ve got to grin and bear it._ But instead, as I looked at him in the fading evening light, I just wanted to hold him tighter against my chest, and feel his heart beating, and _never let him go_.  And although now I knew that the Shepherd was probably just a conman, and that there would be no salvation, and that nothing I’d learned since I was eight years old meant anything anymore - I suddenly felt _grateful_ \- to whom or what, I didn’t know - for, in spite of all that we’d been through in the past forty-eight hours, I was holding my little brother in my arms, and Taylor was right next to me, and we were together, and we were safe.

Before settling down for the night, we gave our brother a shave - our torch supplementing the light from the floodlit path that ran along our row of tents. The end result was far from perfect, but it was an improvement in restoring my little brother’s dignity. The next step would be to give him some clean clothes, and some decent food, and a home. As we huddled together on our mats, Zac nestled in between Taylor’s body and mine, I tried to force myself to focus on a plan, _any plan_ \- what I would do tomorrow, how I was going to get my brothers out of that place. But lying on my side, my face buried in my little brother’s still damp hair, with my arm wrapped around his waist, my resolution weakened, and by the time the next coherent thought had successfully formed in my mind, it was morning.

\--------

The next few days at Blue City only served to reinforce my worries further;  we were stuck in a hopeless circle from which I could see no way of escape. Our money had soon run out, once had Taylor had followed Dylan out of the camp and into a shop - a huge shop, he’d said - where he’d bought some of the essentials we desperately needed, and some food to supplement the pitiful meals we were getting inside.  I had tried to get some work, knowing that I could do pretty much anything to do with construction. At the Compound, the absence of skilled labor meant that any construction staff had to improvise themselves electricians, plumbers, carpenters, bricklayers. Before becoming Estates Supervisor, I’d picked up all those skills, and more. But as I walked up and down the busy streets of the City, and introduced myself to every site foreman who was willing to talk to me, every rejection confirmed my fears - that it didn’t matter what I knew, or what I could do; all that mattered was where I fit into the Outsiders’ world, where I had worked before, what _papers_ I could show. The Displaced Status Cards we had been given at Blue City seemed to count for nothing; the laminated slivers of plastic had our photographs and our names, but under ‘Social Security Number’ they read _Unknown._ Place of Birth? _Unknown_. Address? _Unknown._ Who were we? Did we ever exist outside the Compound?

I walked and walked - scouring street after street for construction sites and anywhere else where I could offer my work. After a while, my initial purpose seemed irrelevant; I was ridiculous, pathetic. I had been deluded enough to think that I could walk out of the Compound and into the Outside; get a job, a place to stay, take care of my younger brothers. But what did I know? I knew how fix stuff, and build things; I could re-wire a house with reasonable confidence, or instal new plumbing that was likely to work; I was pretty good at making furniture out of wood, and not just furniture - I’d once made an easel for Zac so that he could paint. But _their_ world - I didn’t know how it worked. I didn’t understand it. And as I walked down those broad, endless City streets, under the tall, imposing buildings that towered over everything else and everyone else, I felt that there was so much - _too much_ to know.  There were coffee shops everywhere, but I had never tried coffee, and had no idea what all those different types of drinks were. I had no money to pay for them. I had no way of making money to pay for anything. I had no papers, no identity. The City was an endless display of glittering prizes and smells that made your mouth water; but I was invisible, hollow, like a wraith trapped inside the crowd in a parade. I was nobody.

I had seen enough of the City. It was late afternoon when I decided to head back to the camp: I already missed my brothers, but I couldn’t help feeling that I had failed them again.

\----

That night, I woke up to the sound of Taylor’s voice speaking in hushed tones outside the tent. _Who is he talking to?_ I tried to sit up but Zac had pinned me down, with an arm wrapped around my chest and his head wedged under my chin. _Glad to have been of help, Zaccy_ , I thought. I tried to listen out for the conversation taking place just outside, but the sound that reached me was too muffled to make out. I could, however, tell who it was that my brother was speaking with: Dylan.

I tried to relax, running my fingers through Zac’s hair, mindlessly finding knots to untangle as I stared at the blue nylon ceiling above me. A few minutes later, Taylor crawled back inside the tent.

“Ike, are you awake?” he whispered, sitting next to me.

“Yeah. What were you talking about with Dylan?” I asked him.

“It doesn’t matter. I need you to look after Zac until I come back”.

“Where are you going?” I tried to sit up again, but Zac’s head was still on top of me.

“Out. I’ll explain when I get back” he said, as he leaned over to place a quick kiss on our sleeping brother’s head.

“What do you mean ‘out’, Taylor? Where are you going?” I said, louder this time. I didn’t care about waking up Zac anymore.

“I’m going out with Dylan. I’m going to try and earn some money so that we can feed our brother”.


	7. Easy Money

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> POV - Taylor  
> Chapter Word Count - 6104

It wasn’t as if I hadn’t done that sort of thing before.

So when Dylan told me about his ‘source of income’, it seemed in everyone’s best interest that I joined him. It was the only job for which I wouldn’t need any _papers_ , and the way I saw it, our only ticket out of Blue City. It would only be for a couple of weeks, I figured; enough time to get some cash together and, hopefully, some I.D. so that we could get some proper work. We would only have the tent at Blue City for another three weeks anyway, and then we’d have to go back to the communal one, and I certainly didn’t fancy that - and neither did my brothers.

Of course, Isaac had tried to stop me. _“We’ll find some other way”_ , he’d said. _“You can’t keep letting people do that to you”._ But, as I was quick to point out, it wasn’t as if somebody was going to do anything _to_ me. It was a mutual exchange. And anyway, I’d made my mind up, and didn’t want a chance to think it over again and then possibly have second thoughts, and then what? The truth was that, as my brother and I both knew, what I had to do at the Compound had never been a mutual exchange at all; I never _really_ had a choice in the matter. I never doubted for a second that saying ‘no’ would have landed me straight into the arms of RTC; and aside from the extreme unpleasantness of the situation, that would have meant no contact with my brothers for weeks, months, possibly years on end. I’d had no alternative.

I was sixteen when I was chosen to work at the Officers’ Club. At first I was flattered; it was supposed to be an honour to serve the High Ranks; I would learn so much from them, they told me. Besides, the Club House was this concentration of _luxury_ \- the only place in the Compound which appeared  to be exempt from adhering to Flock policy: the Officers Mess served Outsiders’ foods; the library stocked Outsiders’ titles; there was even a _bar_ where alcohol flowed freely for those who had earned their stripes and reached the higher ranks.  At first I was given pretty ordinary duties to perform - cleaning, washing up, fairly harmless tasks that didn’t require to have reached any specific level in processing - since I had only recently started my formal, adult training. I worked hard and when things seemed to be at odds with life in the rest of the Compound, I didn’t ask any questions. I was living in the staff quarters then, and was exhausted from my daily regimen - with early morning starts for Processing Training, then 10-12 hour shifts until I’d finally collapse in my bunk - only do it all over again the next day. It all changed when I finished my apprentice rotation some six months later and was ‘promoted’ - which meant that I was no longer hidden in the kitchens, or expected to be invisible while I cleaned and scrubbed the Club House. Now I was given a better uniform as well as a much easier job - at least, that was what I thought. Because I soon realised that there was a reason for the apparent over-staffing of the Club House with boys of my age. As the more menial jobs were performed by the live-in apprentices, we had little to do except to stand around, pour drinks, fetch things for the Officers, answer the phones; any real administrative duty was usually performed by older, better trained staff. And yet, new staff would be taken on all the time, mostly promoted from apprentice, but some recruited from elsewhere in the Compound. It didn’t take me very long to work out why we were all there.

I didn’t know any different, and I was young, and inexperienced. When my turn came and I was first summoned to the top floor of the Club House, one evening after a particularly rowdy Officers party, I thought _this is it_. My palms left a sweaty trail on the handrail of the mahogany staircase as I forced my feet to move up to the next step, and then the next, trying to rid my mind of the fragmented accounts I’d heard from the other boys, deluding myself that for me it wouldn’t be so bad. That _I was different_ , somehow.

And I _was_ different - but not in a way that would work to my advantage; quite the opposite, in fact, as I came to understand when he sent me to the bathroom with a girl’s nightdress and a pink lipstick that smelled of strawberries. And as he sat me down in front of the bathroom mirror and brushed my hair, before tying them into bunches with pink, glittery bobbles, _I understood_. And after, when he put a token in my hand and told me that if I cut my hair I’d be sent to the RTC, I _,_ again, _understood._

Later at home, when my mother saw me, she looked away. _You have lipstick on your cheeks_ was all she said. That night I sat on the bathroom floor and cried in Isaac’s arms, and I knew that he, too, _understood_.

Staff would come and go from the Club House, and I hoped that I would soon be too old to be considered desirable. But the years passed and I was still there, every request of transfer inexplicably denied. On my twenty-first birthday, I decided to cut my hair. To my surprise, nobody said anything - that particular Officer had long disappeared - and I wasn’t sent to RTC or otherwise punished. I tried to work harder at my Processing Levels, hoping to be assigned to a different building. But instead I was promoted to House Manager - in charge of the day-to-day running of the Club House and of supervising the younger staff. I was, however, still expected to attend the guest rooms whenever an Officer required it. Gradually, I got used to it, and learned ways to get more out of _them_ \- favours, extra tokens, things I needed for Zac. I’d look out for the kids who kept coming through the doors - I couldn’t stop what would happen to them but I could listen when they needed to talk to someone, and sit with them if they felt like crying, and lie to them when they needed to hear that it was going to get better. I thought, _maybe I can actually do something good here_.

And that’s when I stopped resisting. It seemed pointless, and besides, I felt somehow responsible for the younger recruits. Of course, the extra tokens I took home  helped when we moved into our own place, and made it possible to get a few treats for Zac and boost our weekly food allowance - because my baby brother had a _big_ appetite. Sometimes an Officer would turn out to like me - like, really _like_ me, and when that happened, I’d use him as much as I could before he moved somewhere else, or _on to_ someone else. High ranks were the only people in the Compound who would sometimes go out - for all intents and purposes on missions, recruitment drives, occasionally even medical treatment. And they could get me stuff. That’s how I once managed to acquire a set of oil paints for Zac - his face when he’d opened it had been worth the ‘work’ I’d had to put in with one particular Officer - someone whose bedroom preferences had challenged me to say the least. But I built a tolerance to disgust and discomfort. My skin thickened. I could do it as long as I was able to provide for my brothers and as long as Zac was safe.

Until one day, that, too, threatened to change. Zac was already 21 - a lot older than the new apprentices who were regularly recruited for the Club House. It made sense: my younger brother had blossomed late, and morphed from a slightly pudgy, awkward teenager, to a strikingly handsome adult seemingly overnight. To me, he had always been the most beautiful thing I had ever laid my eyes on, but up until that point, nobody else had noticed him. When he started his rotation at the Club House, all the anger that I’d been suppressing over the years resurfaced: they’d got away with it with me, but there was no way I’d let them go anywhere near my baby brother. For the first time, I was truly grateful that I still had a job there, allowing me to keep a close watch on my brother, who had no idea of what was really going on in the most exclusive part of the Compound. Despite technically having reached adulthood, Zac was still very innocent - the only person that he’d ever been physically close to had been me. And I was intending to keep it that way.

Getting Zac transferred out of the Club House did cost me. Finding him a job that he could do with his poor processing skills cost me _even more_. Because, of course, the Officer who could help me knew exactly why I wanted my baby brother moved out of that place, and out of anyone else’s reach. One could say he had leverage; whatever he had, he certainly took advantage of it. I endured his company almost daily, for several months, until he eventually got bored of me, and I found myself with thicker skin than ever before, and a little more jaded.

So when Dylan said _“I’m turning tricks tonight. Pays good money, wanna come?”_ I said:

“Okay”.

\-----------

We went out together way past curfew. Dylan knew a secondary passageway which had to be reached after a ten-minute walk through a heavily wooded area of the park. I didn’t ask him how he’d found it.

The City’s streets were rapidly emptying - the crowds of people that only days before I’d seen rushing to their daily occupations were now hurriedly pouring into subway stations and buses, hailing taxis, walking quickly, heads down, displaying none of the energy that pervaded the morning rush hour. Everybody appeared to be desperate to get home. As we approached a small, run-down playground, I noticed several guys standing around, hands in their pockets, looking into the passing traffic.

“Is it…there?” I asked Dylan.

“Are you kidding me? We can’t just step into their turf. No, we’re going to work a couple of blocks down. But first we need supplies”, he said, pointing at a big cross sign that flashed outside one of the few shops still open.

“Wait here” he said, and walked in. I’d guessed the purpose of our stop, but I had no money on me. I hoped that Dylan would take care of that, at least until I could pay him back. Within minutes, he’d reappeared in front of me, clutching a small paper bag. I watched him as he took a box out and ran a sharp fingernail along the cellophane. He stuck his hand inside.

“Here” he said, putting a handful of the small foil-wrapped squares on my hand, as if they were bunch of mixed candy. I shoved them in my pocket while he opened another box.

“And take some of these” - he said, slapping a few coloured sachets onto my open palm. They felt squishy and cold.

“I’ll…pay you back” I said, grateful that he’d helped me out but unnerved at the same time; it was all becoming a bit too real; but I couldn’t back out now.

“Don’t worry. Your round next time” he said in his mocking, scratchy voice.

We stopped at a street corner, outside a liquor store whose front was partly boarded up. “This is our patch” said Dylan. “Now, listen”.

He reeled out a long list of instructions: places to go with the _john -_ as he called our customers - places that were most definitely best avoided; tricks to make myself look younger. Did I look that old? I was only 29, but I guess the last couple of years had taken their toll - not to mention the past three months spent worrying about my brother’s forced detoxification.

“Try to look cold” he said. “It makes them feel sorry for you, and they’ll want to pick you up”. He demonstrated for me, sticking his hands deep into the pockets of his leather jacket, shuffling his feet almost as if jogging on the spot. It wasn’t going to be very difficult - I _was_ cold. My denim jacket was offering very little protection from the evening chill. Fall was rapidly turning into winter - the thought of which instantly renewed my determination to get some money together and take my brothers out of that freezing tent and into some place _warm_.

I stared out into the street, trying ignore the wave of nausea rising from the pit of my stomach every time a car slowed down - nothing I’d learnt in Processing worked, as my human essence was making itself heard, loud and clear. _This is nothing like what I’ve done before_. I’d never had to stand at street corners; I’d never had to leave the Club House. _I’m going to be sick._

“Taylor?”

“Hmmm?”

“You’re gonna be fine, dude. Hey, you might even _enjoy_ it” he said, raising an eyebrow.

I doubted that very much.

\------------------------------

The car smelled of cinnamon and cigarette smoke. I forced myself to focus on the green cardboard tree that dangled from the rearview mirror, swinging left to right, right to left, left to right again. It really didn’t help with my nausea.

“Nervous?” he asked.

“No”. “ _Don’t let them know it’s your first job”_ Dylan had said. _“Or they’ll try to pull a fast one”_

“So why are you using the seat like a stress ball?” he said, looking down at my hands, which were tightly gripping the leather seat. I loosened the grip, and the sweat under my palms made a squeaky noise against the leather. _Mahogany._ “Relax, gorgeous” he said, putting a hand on my knee”. _Steps_. “We’re almost there”, he said.

Once the door of the motel room was shut behind us, I felt strangely calm. It wasn’t so different, now. He didn’t look that bad - just an average guy in his late 40s, early 50s. Average built, average height. Dark hair with a few strands of grey. There was nothing remarkable about him, nothing memorable; I can remember his face, but I couldn’t describe it. He must have thought I smelled bad, because he made me go and shower first. _I wonder if he’ll let me shower again afterwards_ , I thought. When I walked back into the room, with a towel around my waist, carrying my dirty clothes in a bundle, he looked me up and down. “You’re even prettier when you’re clean”, he said; and that was the first time he hurt me, that night.

It’s always better when you don’t have to face them, but he said he wanted to look at me, and insisted in keeping the lights on. The swirly brown and orange pattern of the wallpaper offered me refuge, a welcome distraction, and I let my eyes wander, and my mind follow, until his fingers gripped my jaw. “Look at me”, he said.

_You know you’ve done this before_ , I told myself, as I forced my eyes to rest on his; I relaxed my body and let my hips meet his thrusts; I grunted and squeaked and moaned and yelped and made all those little sounds that I knew he wanted to hear. I arched my back, and I licked my lips, and I closed my eyes in feigned ecstasy; and when I reopened them, I looked at him as if he was all I’d ever wanted, and that seemed to work because he soon fell on top of of me, and it was finally over.

\---------------

I returned to Blue City in the early hours of the morning, with a wad of cash and an unshakeable sense of shame. My hand hesitated on the tent’s zipper: the last job had happened in a car, and I hadn’t been able to clean up. The shower block wouldn’t open for another three hours. I felt dirty, impure, unworthy of sharing a tent with my brothers. _If I lie down next to them it’s gonna feel like they’ve been tainted too_. I sat down by the entrance, and hugged my knees to my chest. I had long stopped believing that the teachings of the Shepherd could lead to any type of _salvation_ \- that had become apparent enough the moment I’d stepped through the doors of the Club House and watched the Officers give in to every possible compulsion on their path to _purity_. But out there on the Outside, everything I knew seemed even more irrelevant, every technique I’d learned a cheap trick that only worked inside the controlled environment of the Compound. I wished that I, too, could pray to invisible gods, the way the Outsiders did. But what would I pray for?

A sudden gust of wind blew over the city, and all the tents seemed to quiver, the flapping nylon raising a hushed murmur across the camp. I shivered, and stuck my hands under my armpits, pulling my knees a little closer. _Maybe the cold will purify me._ An unexpected sob came from somewhere deep in my guts and my cheeks felt wet. _I wasn’t going to cry,_ I cursed myself, and dug my fingernails into the palms of my hands. _Like dissolves like_ ; _pain dissolves pain._

Then, I heard the sound of the zipper being pulled up.

“Tay? What are you doing out there?” - it was Isaac.

There was no reasoning with him - he pulled me into the tent and into his arms, the way he’d done all those years ago on the bathroom floor. He didn’t ask any questions, he just _understood_. Lying next us, buried inside the sleeping bag, our baby brother slept blissfully on.

\------

I went out the following night, and the one after, and then the one after that. Every day, before it was time to meet up with Dylan, Isaac tried to change my mind. Every morning, when I returned to the tent a little more broken, Isaac just held me without a word of reproach, or a single ‘I told you so’.  I’d hand him the money I’d made, glad to get rid of it, anxious to see it converted into food for my brothers. I saw Zac eat and Ike hide our little stash of bills and thought, _I’m doing what I can_.

\-----

On my fifth working night, we had only been waiting at our patch for a few minutes, waiting for our first johns, when a car pulled up by the kerbside, right where we were standing. The car window was rolled down and, instantly, I felt queasy; but I forced myself to peer inside.

“Want anything?” - I asked.

“What he means is, are you looking for company?” - Dylan said in a flirty voice, having pushed his way into the open car window from behind.

The guy looked at Dylan and then at me, sizing us up for a few seconds, making me feel naked.

“Both of you” he said, as if it was the most reasonable request in the world.

“It’ll cost you more” Dylan said, quickly.

“No problem” - the car door locks clicked open. “You” he told me “Sit in the front”.

He took us to his apartment on the 22nd floor of one of those incredible glass and steel buildings I’d seen on the way into the city. We rode the elevator in silence, and I pretended to study the wood-effect floor while his eyes ran over every part of my body; why couldn’t he look at Dylan instead? Still, I was grateful that Dylan was there; whatever this guy wanted, maybe he was into watching, or whatever - the two of us were ok with each other. And Dylan would have my back. It was actually safer this way, I reassured myself.

Everything in the apartment was new and clean, with an abundance of chrome and gleaming stainless steel, and I got the impression that he didn’t really live there, or if he did, it was only occasionally. There was a bar in a corner, displaying several bottles whose names I recognised from the Officers’ Club House. Dylan eyed the selection and turned to look at the guy, expectantly.

“The bedroom’s that way” was the only offer that came.

The bedroom was on the corner of the building, and two of its sides were floor-to ceiling glass windows. The curtains hadn’t yet been drawn for the night and outside, all around, us, other apartment blocks, _skyskrapers,_ were illuminated from the inside, lights dotted along their heights in irregular patterns; I could see inside some of the neighbouring apartments, and I wondered what it would be like to live in one of those beehives built with the sole purpose of reaching to the sky.

“We’re all going to take a shower” he said, leading us into the bathroom. The shower was huge - there was definitely space for all three of us, and more. I looked at Dylan in an unspoken question. _Is this normal?_ but he just shrugged and started to undress. I reluctantly unbuttoned my denim jacket; I felt as if the guy was stripping me with his eyes and my face burnt with shame as I stepped out of my dirty clothes and piled them up on the floor. _He knows we need this._ He took his clothes off last, and motioned at us to step into the shower; he turned on the taps and the water hit my shoulders hard, and made me jump. There were two shower heads above us and the water came down like heavy rain on my skin; if the situation had been different, it would have felt amazing. But being naked and wet with a complete stranger was making me feel even more vulnerable.

“Soap each other up” he said, handing me a bottle of shower gel; everything he said sounded really final and I asked myself if maybe he was some sort of military officer, someone used to barking orders at subordinates. Looking at his body, he may well have been a soldier - he was muscular, in a heavy, solid way that matched everything I’d seen of him so far. _I’d better do what he says_ , I thought. I poured some gel onto my hand and then passed the bottle to Dylan. I couldn’t help noticing that, although in his clothes he had seemed skinny, Dylan wasn’t as thin as me and my brothers - I couldn’t count all his ribs like I could do with mine; he was thin but not lean, and as I ran my soapy hand over his skin, he felt strangely pudgy. Maybe he found my body strange too, because his fingers seemed to hesitate on every single bone on my back. I could tell that he was trying to look at my face but my eyes kept wandering to the wet tiled floor. I was beginning to think that the whole thing looked really, really _stupid_ \- that little show with Dylan for the benefit of some random stranger. _Let’s get this over and done with and out of here_ , I thought, and put some effort into creating a lather on Dylan’s body, hoping that it would obtain the desired effect on the john so that he’d want to do whatever he had in mind and let us go.

“That’ll do” he said, at last “Now dry off” he said, throwing a towel at Dylan. “You dry him” - he said, pointing at me. Dylan’s hands were all over me once more as he rubbed the towel over my skin. When he was done, I was told to return the favour. _Just get to the point_ , I thought. I took the towel off Dylan’s hands, but the guy handed me a dry one. “Use this one” he said. I opened it and wrapped it around’s Dylan’s slight frame, rubbing his skin as quick as I could, so that we could be done with the whole charade and get down to the inevitable.

“Ouch!” - Dylan shrieked. “Dude!” he hissed at me. “Can you be a bit more gentle?” he said in his low, raspy voice. The guy smirked, no doubt enjoying the whole scene. He probably thought it was some kind of well-rehearsed double-act. “Sorry”, I mouthed at Dylan, feeling bad for having been so rough on him. It wasn’t his fault, and I knew it. I’d chosen to be there; if anything, I ought to be grateful that I was there with a friend and not completely on my own.

By the time we moved on to the bed, I’d relaxed a little. The guy’s next order was that we kissed and touched each other; not the worst option, under the circumstances. _Maybe that’s all he wants_ , _a nice little show,_ I thought, as I exhaled slowly; I rested my back against the headboard and let Dylan sit in front of me, his legs straddling my waist, our slightly damp bodies sticking together. The guy pulled a chair close to the bed and sat down, his hard-on a sure sign that, as far as he was concerned, the show was now firmly on. I buried my fingers in Dylan’s hair and brought his face closer to mine, willing myself to be as gentle as possible as I explored his parted lips with my tongue. I had the impression that Dylan was a few years younger than me, and that his obvious experience of life on the street was only a recent thing. He didn’t seem to be as cold and disillusioned as I was; he acted as if he could still…get into things. I could see it in the way he was trying to look at me in the eyes - wanting to _connect_. For me, connecting _in that way_ with anyone other than Zac was a totally alien concept. I’d never been with anyone else out of choice- there had always been, at best, an exchange of favours or material goods; at worst, I’d just been someone to use. And now I was holding Dylan in my arms but he wasn’t the one paying me to do so. _My life has just become a little bit stranger._

As much as I was trying to get lost in the moment, I was acutely aware that what we were doing was for show and not for our own amusement; but I didn’t know how far we were meant to take things. We kept kissing and stroking each other, without daring to do anything that would take us to the point of no return, until we felt the mattress sink with the sudden weight and the john was suddenly kneeling next to us.

He grabbed Dylan by the arm and moved him out of the way; not roughly, but not asking nicely, either. Up until that point, he hadn’t even touched us.

“Lie down on your back” he said, looking at me. _Here we go._

I slid down the bed, trying to control the now all-too-familiar wave of nausea that was once again coming over me. I glanced at Dylan who was sitting by my side; he gave me a little smile. _You’re not the one on your back, here_ , I thought.

“Lift your arms above your head” the guy said. I stared at him, unsure as to what he meant, exactly. “ _Lift your arms above your head_ ” he barked, making me jump a little. I stretched my arms up and felt the headboard behind me. I looked at Dylan again and he wasn’t smiling anymore. Suddenly, my throat felt really dry.

“You” the guy said to Dylan “Hold his arms down”. I drew a sharp intake of breath. I turned towards Dylan but he was already climbing to the top of the bed and grabbing my wrists, stretching my arms a little further behind me so that my hands were lined up with my head. I glanced up again, trying to look at him, but I felt my body being dragged lower down the bed - the john had just grabbed my legs and pulled me down. He was certainly strong. _Just relax. You’ve done plenty of sick shit before_. What was different this time was the fact that it was a friend who was holding me down. But I guessed, at that point, Dylan didn’t have much choice, either. The guy had paid us extra; we’d asked no questions and hadn’t thought of laying down some boundaries. As far as he was concerned, we were up for anything.

“Open that pretty mouth of yours, blondie” he said. He had climbed on top of me and was now straddling me, his cock already practically in my face. _Do it_ , I told myself. My lips had barely parted that he’d shoved himself inside, and before I had time to take a deep breath in to prepare myself, I felt the girth of him being rammed into my mouth, not stopping until I felt the swollen head of his cock push against the back of my throat and breathing was out of the question  Instinctively, I tried to move my arms but Dylan was doing a good job at keeping me pinned down. _Relax,_ I said to myself, _just relax,_ I kept thinking, hoping that my throat would follow my mind’s instructions. _I am just going to lie here and let my body go limp and breathe through my nose and let him fuck my mouth and he will soon be done and then it’ll be over and I won’t do anymore tonight and I’ll go back to the tent and Isaac will be there and--_

“Keep your eyes open, blondie!” he said in a growl, yanking my hair so hard that my eyes watered. I must have closed them without realising. Without thinking, I tried to speak, and his cock sunk a little deeper into my throat, making me gag. My arms thrashed under Dylan’s grip, but he wasn’t letting go of my wrists. _Please, Dylan_. The john was still drilling my mouth so fast that even breathing through my nose was becoming an effort; I started to feel dizzy. _Please, stop._

“Cover his nose” he said to Dylan; and the next thing I knew, my friend’s knees were holding my arms down while he put his hand over my nose, covering my nostrils entirely. Now I was panicking - why was Dylan doing this to me? My head started to spin as my nostrils sucked in the skin on Dylan’s palm, helplessly trying to get the trapped air under his cupped hand. _If I don’t get out now I’m going to pass out_ , I thought. _I don’t want to be unconscious around this guy._ Dylan’s knees were still pressing down on my wrists and my hands were beginning to feel numb; my shoulders ached from my arms being stretched so far above my body. _I can’t do this anymore._ I summoned every residue of strength I could muster and yanked one of my arms free from under Dylan’s knees, distracting him for a split second, enough for him to lift his hand from my nose and try to reposition himself over me. But it was too late, and I had freed my other arm, and was pushing the john’s body off me, thrashing convulsively on the mattress until I’d _spat_ his cock out, too. I threw myself off the bed, lunging for the bathroom, where my clothes were. But he grabbed one of my legs and I fell flat on my face.“Dylan!” I called out, before my head was slammed onto the hard floor and I tasted blood. I’m not sure what came after and in what order, and what he shouted first -

_“You stupid little whore”_

_“You think you’re too good for this, don’t you?”_

_“You’re a fucking waste of space”_

_-_ but I remember tucking my head between my arms and trying to curl into a ball; I remember he pried my legs away from my chest and kicked me, over and over again; and I remember feeling strangely lucid - considering myself lucky that the john wasn’t wearing any shoes; and still the kicks kept coming, until something cracked inside my chest and the most piercing pain I had ever felt in my life made me _howl_. Maybe that’s what made him stop. Perhaps he simply got bored. For a moment I was alone on the bedroom floor - _where’s Dylan? -_ every shallow breath renewing the pain; until my clothes fell on me, followed by my shoes.

“Get out”. He sounded calmer now.

Trying to sit up hurt as much as his kicks had, and seemed to take forever. My eyes searched the room for Dylan, but there was no sign of him.

“Your friend’s gone. Get out before I change my mind and get my money’s worth after all” he said. “I’m going to put some clothes on. If you’re not gone by the time I’ve got out of the bathroom, we’re both going to get naked again”.

I grabbed my clothes and my shoes and made them into a bundle, and I willed myself to ignore the knives that were stabbing my chest as I slowly got up on my feet. Putting one foot in front of the other, I counted each, step - one, two, three, as a trickle of blood from my nose ran over my lips and off my chin, each thick red droplet a step further, drip, drip, dripping on the immaculately polished floor, until, in a daze, I saw my own arm reach for the front door’s handle. Under the soles of my feet, the coarseness of the doormat reassured me that I had made it outside.I crawled to the other end of the corridor, until I saw a door that said ‘FIRE ESCAPE’. Under the harsh fluorescent light of the staircase, I allowed myself to stop, and put my clothes back on; they felt even dirtier than only a couple of hours earlier. I sat on the staircase, placing my shoes on the step where my feet were resting. Trying to put my sneakers on was more difficult than I would ever have thought; I took another shallow breath and bent forward to tie the laces, biting my lips to distract myself from the effort. _Almost done._ Finding one last shred of resolve, I lifted my arms to put my shirt, triggering an aftershock of pain so excruciating that I became dizzy, and had to stop and sit on the step with my eyes shut for a few seconds until the darkness around me had disappeared and the ringing in my ears had quietened. Slowly, I got up and opened the Fire Escape door - only enough to peer into the corridor and check that he wasn’t there after all. All clear. I headed for the elevator as quietly as I could and pressed the golden button marked ‘G’.  I almost held my breath for the 22 floor ride down, until the doors opened and went _ping_ , and within a few steps I was outside. The cold air felt like a slap on my face; _now, what?_

I had no idea of where I was - I hadn’t really been concentrating during the uncomfortable drive from our patch to the apartment. Dylan was gone, and so were the night’s takings. I checked my jeans pockets: all I had was a couple of coins.  I started to walk, pushing my hands into the pockets of my denim jacket to try and keep warm, when my fingers felt something: I took it out and saw the little rectangular piece of paper.

_Thank you._

I looked around me until I saw what I needed, right across the road on the opposite sidewalk; I wanted to run, but I could barely walk.  Under the glare of a nearby streetlight was a pay phone kiosk. I fed the coins into the slot and my hands were shaking as I held the card in front of me while I dialled the number; it rang free. After the third ring, a voice picked up:

“Hello?”

It was definitely his voice.

“Jesse?”


	8. But Now I See

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> POV - Zac, Isaac  
> Chapter Word Count - 4,265

_Why can’t you lie still, Ike…!_  
  
I’d been asleep for a few hours, resting my head on my brother’s chest, his arm wrapped around me, holding me close. I was comfortable, and I liked to hear his heartbeat while I drifted off to sleep. But now he was clearly wide awake, and kept shifting positions slightly, waking me up with every adjustment. I’d drift off again, and again he’d move. I really, really wanted to sleep. _Be still, please, Ike_ , I thought to myself. _Maybe I should ask him to stop fidgeting?_

Our new sleeping arrangements had been a necessity over the last few nights. It was cold, and I initially huddled against my big brother to keep warm;  at first it had felt a little strange to just be the two of us, in the tent, without Taylor. But I’d soon found comfort in the relative warmth of Isaac’s body, even though I could feel his ribs under my head: they were hard, like the springs that poked me through the thin mattress in my cell at the Detox Center. The rising and falling of his chest lulled me to sleep - it felt so good that I soon couldn’t settle in any other way, and besides, Isaac didn’t mind, because he never told me to move.  
  
I tried to doze off again, squeezing my eyelids shut, my ear pressed against my big brother’s heart - it had worked so far, and his gentle breathing was a soothing, comforting sound. I liked to feel that he was there, that he would never _leave me_. I pressed my head against him a little bit harder, hoping he’d get the hint that his stirring was keeping me awake, closed my eyes and waited for sleep to come. Soon, though, I heard him sigh, as he shifted slightly again. I felt him reach for the torch and flick it on, the brightness filtering through my closed eyelids; he extracted his arm from under the sleeping bag and I was pretty sure he checked his watch. It must have been later than usual. _Taylor should be back by now. Why isn’t he?_  
  
He’d been going out with that Dylan guy every night for almost a week now; he wasn’t usually back until the early hours of the morning, when I’d suddenly wake up with my head on the rubber mat instead of Isaac’s chest, while Taylor was occupying my place next to him. I’d hear them talk to each other in little more than a whisper, and then I’d drift off again, safe in the knowledge that they were both there with me. By morning I’d wake up on top of Isaac again, having somehow found my way back to my usual spot at some point in my sleep. But now my mind was racing: where did Taylor go every night? When I’d asked him, he’d just answered ‘work’ in a tone that didn’t really encourage any more questions.  
  
Now that I was thinking about it, though, I couldn’t understand how Taylor had managed to find a job when Isaac hadn’t. And Isaac could do a lot of things - he could build stuff, and fix broken things; on the other hand, I had never quite worked out what Taylor’s duties actually involved. He was a House Manager for the Club House, which meant…supervising staff, probably? Did they need House Managers in the City? Maybe Taylor covered the night shifts?  
  
Since taking up that work, Taylor had been bringing back food, proper food that he had bought in the shops outside the camp on his way home. He’d bring back really good things, like fresh bread, cheese, ham, apples. And chocolate - he had given me a small bar of chocolate every day. He said it was a special present for me and that I didn’t have to share it, but that I shouldn’t eat it too quickly. Isaac had laughed at that - and I’d felt a little bit guilty for always being so hungry. But I really couldn’t help it. I’d always had a big appetite, and the weekly food rations that we were allocated at the Compound had never seemed enough to feed all three of us. The few tokens that Isaac took home from his job were always spent on other things that we needed, like toiletries, and boring stuff like underwear, and socks. When we were out of our initial formal training, and had to return our uniforms, there were clothes to worry about, too.  My brothers were pretty much the same size but I was bigger, and none of their shirts fit me; somehow, Taylor had managed to procure some clothes in my size - a pair of jeans, a few t-shirts and a couple of long sleeve shirts, enough to keep me going. They were nice clothes, not the drab, second-hand crap that they sold at the Compound store. They looked like the kind of things that came from the Outside - they came in bright colours and were made of good-quality fabrics. And above all, they didn’t smell funny like the stuff we were used to. One particular shirt had quickly become my favourite - it had black and yellow checks and it was made of nice, thick cotton that I could wear almost all year around - except for maybe the hottest summer months. I’d only take it off to wash it - admittedly, not as often as I should - to only wear it again when it was dry. I loved that shirt.  
  
 _How did he pay for it? Someone must have bought in on the Outside for him. Who?_  
  
I thought of all those times when Taylor had come back from work exhausted, and how he’d never let me touch him until he had showered and changed his clothes. For a House Manager, he _did_ seem to work late into the night; sometimes he wouldn’t come in until two or three in the morning; and I remembered how, especially during the first few months, he would lock himself in the bathroom with Isaac and not come to bed until a lot later. I always thought that they wanted to talk about more grown-up stuff without me around. Sometimes, though, I could hear him cry. I thought that maybe my brother was finding working life a bit too difficult; and by the time we were living by ourselves, I’d assumed he had adjusted, because he didn’t cry anymore. But he’d still come home very late. I’d hear the key turn inside the lock and I’d pretend to be asleep, even if I could hear Taylor tiptoe into the apartment, as he tried not to wake me. He’d sit at the end of the couch where Isaac slept, and whisper _‘Ike? Are you awake?’_ \- knowing full well that he wasn’t ; and then, they’d sit up and talk for a while, but I’m not sure for how long, because by that point I’d usually go back to sleep again.  
  
I did, sometimes, wonder what my brothers talked about so late into the night. Did they discuss Taylor’s work? People around the Compound used to speak of the Officers’ Club with a mix of curiosity and fear. There were plenty of stories going round about the place, all unconfirmed, because, as Taylor explained after he was recruited, any member of staff discussing his working life at the Club would be immediately sent to RTC.  At first, Taylor had been very excited to have been hired - other kids of his age were so jealous that he had been chosen over them for no apparent reason. Because you didn’t apply to work at the Club House, _they_ chose you. Nobody knew what the criteria was and who might have put a certain candidate forward. But when his apprentice rotation finished, and he was promoted to regular staff, whatever was left of Taylor’s excitement towards the job seemed to evaporate for good. And only now I realised that it was around that time that the crying started. We used to tell each other everything, but I never asked him what was making him so upset every night, and he never told me.  
  
It was a surprise to everybody, myself included, when I was told to report to the Officers’ Club Staff Selection Services as a new recruit; nobody expected it, since I’d been consistently underachieving since the start of my formal training. But Taylor had actually got upset about it, which I couldn’t understand, as after my first six months of residency in the staff quarters we would be able to see each other during the day. Then, two months into my placement, I was called into Staff Selection Services again and told that I had been transferred. They wouldn’t tell me why, so I assumed it was because I was still lagging behind in my training. When they told me where my new placement would be - over at the Children’s Block, the lowest of the low in terms of status within the Compound - it seemed to make sense: the job consisted in changing diapers and mopping up sick, requiring little to none processing ability. They didn’t think I was good enough to work at the Club House, and that was something I could accept. But I’d got used to working in the same building as Taylor, and I couldn’t bear the idea of being apart again.  
  
Later that evening, when I told Isaac what had happened, he said _‘It’s better that way’_.   
  
 _Why?_  
  
 _So many “whys”._  
  
 _“Why can’t you speak to the SS Officer for me?”_ I’d asked Taylor when he’d come home in the early hours of morning. _“I never ask you for anything. Why won’t you do this one thing for me, Tay?”_  
  
And he’d just stared at me long and hard, without saying anything, and I thought he’d looked _hurt_ , but it didn’t make sense, because I was the one who had lost his job.  
  
 _Why?_  
  
 _Why am I even thinking about the Club House? What has it got to do with Taylor’s work now?_ My mind was making strange connections between unrelated things, fragments from our past that were somehow resurfacing for no apparent reason. Things that were bugging me, but I didn’t quite know _why_. All I knew was that my brother was out somewhere, in the City, and he was coming back with money every morning, and something about the whole thing didn’t feel right. I didn’t trust Dylan - I couldn’t see his face, but he said mean things and then pretended that he was joking. And I couldn’t help notice that whenever Dylan was around, Isaac held me a little closer, as if he didn’t want our new ‘friend’ to get near me.   
  
It was almost seven a.m. - Taylor had never stayed out so late before. He normally slept for a couple of hours until Isaac woke him up at seven, when the shower block opened. Only after returning from his shower did Taylor seem to relax, and he’d finally pull me close to him, and then we’d all sleep together for a little while longer.  
  
 _He’d never let me touch him until he’d showered and changed his clothes._  
  
Now my brother had no fresh clothes to change into. But after showering, he felt clean enough to be near me and hold me, and that was my favourite moment in the whole day.  
  
When I’d asked Isaac what Dylan looked like, he had said _“he looks a bit like a girl”_.  That got me thinking back to when Taylor was younger, as he looked _a lot_ like a girl then; not just because he used to wear his hair long -  he was simply pretty in a feminine, delicate way. Isaac used to tease him about it, although when Taylor started to work, the teasing stopped. One day, when Taylor had just come home, and I was still up, I noticed he smelled faintly of _strawberry_. I didn’t know what a girl smelled like, but I figured it would probably be something like that _._ Of course _,_ there were no girls at the Club House when I worked there, only boys; most of them were younger than me - roughly between 16 and 18. They were all --   
  
\-- no.   
  
 _That’s ridiculous._  
  
But I couldn’t stop the strange connections from forming, one after another, thoughts shooting in all directions, a web of thoughts, a map with large white unexplored regions that were gradually being filled with roads leading to places I wasn’t sure I wanted to go to.   
  
 _Strange connections._  
  
Like how I was never happy with the way I looked when I was younger. I was chubby and had pimples all over my face; Taylor was always the good-looking one of the three. I only started to feel more confident about myself later on--  
  
 _\--when?_  
  
I was 21 years old when my apprenticeship started.  
  
 _Strange connections_.  
  
How someone in the line at the mess tent the day before had said - _‘Look, we have another camp whore’_ , and Isaac had suddenly asked me something about my ankles -  did they still hurt? - and I thought it was a bit of a random question.  
  
How Dylan had muttered _‘asshole’_ to no-one in particular.  
  
 _‘Another camp whore’_?  
  
 _\- no._  
  
 _Where is Taylor now?_  
  
 _What does Isaac know?_  
  
 _Strange connections_.  
  
 _How could I be so stupid?_  
  
  
  
“Ike?”

\--------

It was almost six in the morning and still no sign of Taylor. He’d never stayed out so late. Every conceivable thought was running through my mind - what if something really, really bad had happened to him, what if he was in hospital, or worse? What if he was hurt, somewhere, alone - what if he needed my help? There was no way I could settle back to sleep. And  Zac was pinning me down, as usual, his head resting on my chest, something I had relished up until that moment, but that was now becoming a hindrance, because I just wanted to get up, get out of Blue City and look for my brother. I didn’t even know where to look, but I could try the hospital where we’d taken Zac - Golgotha Community Hospital - that’s what it was called. Maybe Jesse would be on duty, maybe he’d help us find him.   
  
 _I can’t live without my brother._  
  
A cramp tightened my stomach: we’d been through some stressful moments in the last few days but this was the worst I’d ever felt in a long time - at least since Zac’s illness, when we thought we were going to lose him. Now maybe we had _already_ _lost_ Taylor and how exactly were we going to find out? Who was going to notice a street ... _whore_ with no papers?   
  
None of this would have happened if I’d managed to get a job. I should have tried harder, why didn’t I? Surely there must have been a job, _one job_ that I could have done. But no, I’d given up so easily. _I can’t believe I let Taylor do this again. I’ve failed them both._  
  
 _I should have put a stop to all that a long time ago. I should have taken my brothers out of the Compound that same night when Taylor came home with lipstick on his face and blood dripping down his legs. I should have packed our bags and walked us out of that place there and then_.  
  
And now, now that was the _only_ way we could get some money together to just…survive. And I wouldn’t have lasted five minutes out there on the street with Dylan; not just because I wasn’t anywhere near as good-looking as Taylor, and not because I wasn’t prepared to debase myself to feed my brothers, but because we both knew that I would have had no idea of what to do when it came to _that_. And Taylor had certainly had plenty of experience and if someone could handle it, it was him, not me.   
  
And someone had to stay behind with Zac.   
  
Even though we had made it very clear to Zac that we had no intention of leaving him by himself even for one minute, our little brother had become increasingly dependant on us, resulting in his seemingly constant need to be _physically_ attached to me or Taylor at all times. And now that Taylor was spending the night outside, it had become my job to hold my little brother close as he drifted off to sleep and make him feel safe; and I would be lying if I said that I wasn’t enjoying being Zac’s first choice, his _only choice_ , for once. But that was _wrong_ \- how could I? How could I just lie there, in the relative comfort of our tent, losing myself in the warmth that my little brother’s body radiated against mine, while Taylor was out there doing horrible things, for us?   
  
 _What if he doesn’t come back?_  
  
Another cramp tightened my stomach in a crushing grip, and my mind was briefly distracted by the practicalities of making my way to the restroom block with Zac in tow. He seemed asleep, but only a few minutes earlier he had re-positoned his head over my chest, and I was sure that when he’d pressed down on me a little harder, he had done it on purpose, a not-so-subtle hint for me to stop disrupting his sleep. The thought made me smile - my little brother had become so demanding and almost selfish, like a spoilt child, and I was letting him get away with it. It was as if he wanted, _needed_ constant attention, like having his hair stroked, or his back rubbed; and as far as I was concerned, I was more than happy to oblige. But I wasn’t deluded - I knew I couldn’t replace Taylor; I could see  Zac getting increasingly restless in the day time, when our brother was catching up with his sleep. To stop him from disturbing Taylor, I’d make our little brother talk; I’d ask him to tell me what he would have liked to eat once we were out of the camp, and what he would have liked to paint if he’d had a canvas in front of him. I wanted him to remember what it was like to see proper shapes and colours; I’d give him a prompt - _what colours would you use to paint an eggplant_? - and I’d watch him concentrate, his big brown eyes scanning an imaginary palette, mixing, blending; and every time he gave me his answer I’d see something in his face - _hope?_ _loss?_ \- and it would break my heart; but then he’d say ‘one more’ and I’d pull myself together, and we’d carry on. _What colours would you use to paint…._  
  
  
“Ike? Ike?” - Zac’s voice shook me out of my day dream. So he was awake, after all.  
“What is it, buddy? How come you’re not asleep?” I said.  
“I could ask you the same question. You’re worried about Tay, right?” he said, propping himself up on his elbow. “He should have been back by now” he added; his voice was a little shaky.  
“He…I’m sure he’ll be back soon, Zac. He’s probably gone to the shops to buy us some food. Go back to sleep now”.  
“Ike, stop trying to hide things from me!” he snapped. “What is Taylor _doing_ out there?”  
  
 _Where’s all this coming from?_ I thought, taken aback by my little brother’s suddenly serious tone. He was trying to focus his eyes on me now, and the needy, spoilt brat had been replaced by an adult demanding answers.  
“Ike, please…he comes back and he won’t even come near me but he lets you hug him and…” - his voice cracked and he stifled a sob before carrying on “…and it was the same when he worked at the Club House, right? What was he _really_ doing there, Ike?” - my little brother broke into tears, his body now shaken by uncontrollable sobs.  
  
And so I told him the truth.  
  
We’d never meant to lie to our brother. He was only 14 when it all started, and definitely too young to understand. And then, gradually over the years, it had seemed easier to shield him from the truth, to spare him the ugliness that Taylor was having to face almost daily. Even when he had technically reached adulthood, we couldn’t bring ourselves to tell him the actual reason why he’d been transferred from the Club House to the Children’s Block; he was still so... _innocent_ in many, many ways, and besides, there was always the risk that he’d accidentally talk to someone about it, something that would have landed Taylor straight into RTC. As the years passed, we became increasingly reliant on Taylor’s extra income, which was allowing us to spoil our brother a little; there would have been little to gain in telling him the truth, except to make him feel guilty, and a burden; and we most definitely didn’t want that.  
  
He listened quietly as I tried to explain a lifetime of compromises to him; every now and then he’d interrupt to ask a question, and then he’d nod slowly, as if he was adding the pieces together in his mind, details that had probably seemed so insignificant before now finally making sense. With every new bit of information, I saw him crumple a bit more, the veil of innocence that we had kept him wrapped in for so long finally lifting from his eyes, _forever_.  
  
His eyes were still full of tears, but he held them in, and for the first time I felt that I was talking to Zac as a man rather than the little brother I had been trying to protect since the day we moved into the Compound.  
  
When everything that could be said had been said, we sat quietly for a few minutes. Daylight was breaking and I could hear people beginning to emerge from their tents, voices all around us alerting that it was now officially morning.  
  
“He should have been back by now, shouldn’t he?” Zac said, eventually; his voice was unsteady again.  
“Yeah, he should have been” I said, trying to hide my anxiety, but I knew I wasn’t doing a very good job of it.  
“What if he doesn’t come back, Ike?” - his voice cracked and I heard him swallow hard. He was my little brother, again. I held him closer, and took his hand into mine. It felt cold, and clammy.   
“He will come back, Zac, I promise. Our brother is tougher than he looks”, I said, desperately wanting to believe it.  
  
We lied down on the mats again, facing each other, listening out for voices, too scared to talk in case we missed our brother’s call, our silence only intermittently broken by Zac’s sniffing. Free at last from the burden of truth, we drifted off to sleep.  
  
~~~~~~~~  
  
I was awaken by the most beautiful sound in the world: Taylor’s voice. It was a few yards away, but it was definitely him.  
  
“Zac! Zac!” I shook my little brother a couple of times, before turning to the other side to unzip the tent’s flap. I sprang out and saw Jesse walk towards me with my brother, who was holding on to his arm. He had bruises on his face, and blood had dried up on his upper lip, like badly smudged lipstick. But he was there in front of me, and he was more or less in one piece.   
  
“Hey, Ike” he said. He sounded really, really tired.    
“Tay...-”    
“Careful mate, he has a broken rib” Jesse said, putting his hand out to stop me as I was about to crush my brother into the tightest hug I was capable of.    
“A broken rib? Wh-what happened?” I asked, taking in my brother’s battered appearance.    
“It’s ….a long story” Taylor said, looking down to his feet.    
“Tay? Tay?” Zac had emerged from the tent and was pawing at the air, trying to locate our brother.     
“Hey buddy”, Taylor said, reaching for Zac’s hand and giving it a squeeze “Be gentle because I’m a little sore” he added, wincing in pain as Zac threw his arms around his neck, totally oblivious to what Jesse had just said about Taylor’s broken rib. But of course, my little brother couldn’t see the pain in Taylor’s face, nor the bruises. All he knew was that Taylor was back with us, and he wanted to _feel_ him, and I was sure that Taylor could take a little bit more discomfort, at that point.   
  
And as Zac clung on to his neck, refusing to let go, our brother closed his eyes, and I saw his face relax for a moment, all traces of pain gone, erased by the absolute certainty that he was safe, and that we were together, once again.  
  
“What happened Tay, are you hurt?” Zac said, still not letting go of our brother’s neck.    
“Maybe you can tell them everything later, Taylor?” Jesse stepped in. “Why don’t we just pack your stuff now and get out of here” he said, looking at me.   
 _What?_  
“Get out of here? To go...where?” I asked, looking at Jesse and then at Taylor; did we have to run away, _again_?    
Jesse smiled, as if he’d read my mind.    
“Don’t worry, it’ll be somewhere better than this place. Well, hopefully.” he laughed.  “You’re going to come and stay with me for a while. How does that sound?”


	9. Lucky

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> POV: Taylor  
> Chapter Word Count: 7,052
> 
> WARNING: some graphic sexual content, non-consensual sex, violence.

“Okay, let’s go” Jesse said, turning the key in the ignition.

” _WITH THE LIGHTS OUT, IT’S LESS DANGEROUS…”_ a voice screamed out of the car speakers as the engine started, making me jump - and, judging by the sound of my brothers’ gasps in the back seat, making them jump, too. 

“Shit…sorry!” - Jesse turned to me with wide eyes as he fumbled for the volume control. “Are you ok guys? Didn’t mean to make you jump” he said to my brothers, looking at their reflection on the rear view mirror.

I turned to look at the back seat - Zac had gone totally rigid, his fingers digging deep into Isaac thigh. 

“We..’re.. good” Isaac said, shooting a nervous glance at the reflection of Jesse’s eyes in the mirror. “I’m sorry…we’re just not…” he glanced at me seeking help. _How do we explain the fact that what he obviously considers music sounds like pure noise to us?_  

“How about we have some peace and quiet instead” - Jesse said, rescuing my brother from having to justify our reaction. He pressed a button on the dashboard and the music stopped. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Only a few hours earlier, I, too, had jumped on my seat from the sudden shock of hearing that strange, loud song blaring out of Jesse’s s car; the sudden movement had made me cry out in pain and Jesse looked really concerned before turning the stereo off and stepping down on the accelerator a little harder.  

He’d pulled by the phone kiosk only a few minutes hanging up the phone - I had tried to explain what had happened but he’d stopped me - _“You can tell me when I get there”_. 

Those ten minutes seemed like forever though - I kept scanning my surroundings for signs of the john, terrified that he would be coming after me and get his money’s worth, after all.  My heart raced with every passing car and when one finally stopped by the kerbside, I held my breath until the door slammed shut and someone said my name in that most peculiar way - _‘Ty-lor?’,_ and I knew it was _him_. 

When we got to the hospital, he put me under an _x-ray_ machine and then showed me the inside of my chest.  I’d never seen a picture of my bones before and I stared at it in amazement while Jesse explained that I had a broken rib, and bruising  around some of the others. He took me to a cubicle and, just like he’d done a couple of weeks before, he drew a curtain around it and told the nurses to go away. I felt bad because I had left my temporary papers back at the camp with Isaac, which meant that Jesse had to lie about me on the paperwork again. I really didn’t want him to get into trouble, but I had no one else to turn to. 

“What kind of trouble are you in, Taylor?” he said, almost casually, as he dabbed my lip with a sharp smelling solution that really stung. “Are your brothers all right?”

“I... - yes - they’re fine. They’re back at the camp” I said. “They must be really worried by now” I added, my voice cracking at the thought of my brothers, stuck in that tent, wondering where I was. 

“And what are _you_ doing out at this time? Blue City has a six o’clock curfew, right?”

“Yes, well…” I said, unable to meet Jesse’s eyes. A hot flush crept up to my cheeks - I had never felt so ashamed before. I had truly veered off the Path to Purity now; all the things I’d done in the past had seem acceptable within the parameters of our universe, but now I couldn’t shake off the sense that I had made myself untouchable, unworthy. As I allowed an Outsider to clean the blood from my face, I had never felt so _impure_. 

“Taylor” Jesse lowered his voice a little “I’m not judging you, mate; it’s just that I work in a hospital E.D….and when guys from Blue City end up here in the middle of the night, it’s usually for the same one or two reasons” he said, pausing what he was doing for a second and forcing me to look up at him.  There was something really disarming about the way he looked at me - as if he already knew anyway, and all I had to do was _surrender_. 

“I…wouldn’t… _I_ _couldn’t do_ what he said and…” and that was it - tears were rolling down my face and I simply couldn’t control myself anymore; trying to stifle my sobs was only making my feel as if my ribs were being kicked all over again. So I let go.

Jesse listened quietly as I told him about the last few hours and the last few nights, explaining in broken fragments, stopping only whenever the pain in my chest was too intense to carry on. He didn’t touch me, or hold me like Isaac would have done; instead, he picked up a box of tissues from a nearby cabinet and placed it next to me on the bed; he took out a few tissues and gently pushed them into my hand. When I finally managed to calm myself down, he put a hand on my shoulder;

“I’m going to get your some painkillers now, okay?”

I nodded and he left, drawing the curtain around the cubicle again. What next, though? Sure, I was in pain, and medicine would help, but my broken rib was now forcing me to rule out the only way I had found to support my brothers. _What are we going to do for food now? How am I going to get my brothers out of that tent?_  

Jesse came back with a bottle of pills and a plastic cup filled with water. He took my right hand and turning it so that the palm was facing up, he shook two pills out of the small bottle. Handing me the cup of water, he said: “Doctor’s orders”.

“Now listen, Taylor” he said after I’d swallowed the pills and the rest of the water “What you’ve been doing…you’ve got to stop. Tonight you were lucky: other guys like you who ended up here never made it out”.

I shuddered. At the Compound, the only real danger was the constant threat of being sent to RTC for breaking the rules. I’d had to put up with a lot of sick behaviour, but I had never really felt that my life was in danger. 

“You can’t take that sort of risk when you’ve got your brothers waiting for you back at the camp” - Jesse continued.

“I know” I said. “But I don’t know what else to do. It’s the only job I’ve ever done” I admitted.

Jesse’s eyes widened and he opened his mouth as if to say something, but I carried on - afraid that if I stopped talking, I wouldn’t have the courage to start again.

“I mean, that was the only job I ever did back at the Compound” I explained.

“The Compound?” Jesse repeated, raising his eyebrows.

“Yes…it’s a few hours south of here. That’s where we grew up” - I said, feeling that I owed him sort sort of explanation. - “You …won’t know it, but we were part of a church, The Church of Reconstruction…we called it The Flock” I added.

“ _The Flock?_ ” Jesse said with an expression of utter disbelief. “As in, the cult?”

I remembered the truck driver had used the same word. He’d called it ‘cult’.

“I don’t know. I mean, I guess so. I’m not really sure…it’s our religion. Or at least it was. I mean now…after what they did to Zac…” I said staring down at the wet crumpled piece of tissue still in my hand. I was suddenly feeling very tired, and I didn’t know if I had enough energy left to explain our upbringing to an Outsider.

“Zac? You mean…his injuries... Jesus Christ….” Jesse said, shaking his head slowly, looking at me as if I was suddenly a different person. 

_Please_ , _don’t ask me to explain now_ , I thought, hoping that the look in my eyes said what I couldn’t express. 

“Taylor” - he continued after a few moments - “whatever you did back there, it’s not safe now. Especially if you don’t know how things work out here, in the real world. If you come across as vulnerable, people will exploit that, and try to hurt you”. 

“But …my brothers rely on that money now -…what are we going to do without it? Maybe Isaac and I can live on a bowl of rice and beans a day, but Zac hasn’t got really any weight left to lose - what am I going to feed him?” I said, my voice strained with frustration. 

“There must be another way-…” 

“I don’t think there is” I cut him off “we tried, Isaac walked all over the City trying to get a job, he didn’t want me to do this” I said “but we’re not used to living like that…like _animals_ ”. My voice cracked and I blinked repeatedly to contain the new tears that were welling in my eyes. 

Jesse sighed, looking away, then looking back at me. He opened his mouth, as if to speak, but hesitated. Eventually, after slowly releasing a deep breath, he said:

“All right, look. What if I could help you out - what if you and your brothers came and stayed with me?”. 

_What?_ My eyes widened in disbelief. _Why would he say that?_

“Wh-what?” 

“Look…” he said  - “I know it’s probably hard for you to trust people out here…”

_But I trust you!_ I thought.

“…but you’ve got to trust _someone_ at some point, and you trusted me enough before to let me help your brother”

“It’s…not that - I mean, of course I trust you” I said, a smile of disbelief at the alternative creeping up on my face. “It’s just…why would you want to do that? Help us...like that?”

“Why?” he blinked “Because I don’t think I can just take you back to that tent and then go my own way and not feel like an _arsehole_.” 

I was speechless. I didn’t want to look ungrateful, but I couldn’t believe he was actually inviting us to his home, without knowing us, and for nothing in return.

“Are…are you sure?” that was all I could eventually say. 

“Positive. Come and stay with me for a few days, with your brothers. Because I really don’t think you guys are safe out here in the City”. 

That’s what he’d said, and he didn’t even touch me as he said it, but it felt as if he’d put his arms around me and held me close; I felt like I did countless times before, after a particularly bad night, when I’d got home and finally found safety in Isaac’s arms.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We were out of the City center now and driving through quiet streets that didn’t seem to have so many shops, and where buildings weren’t as tall as those that surrounded Blue City. I turned to check on my brothers on the back seat, and I couldn’t help smiling when I saw that Zac was already asleep with his head on Isaac’s knees; a return to normality.  

“Uh-oh” Jesse said - “Road block”

I looked at the road in front of us and saw a cluster of soldiers stopping the cars ahead of us. Jesse slowed down until we were almost stationary.

“They’re going to want to see our papers. Have you got your DPS cards ready?” he asked me.

“I’ve got them” Isaac said behind me. He looked inside his duffel bag and handed over the slivers of plastic that had somehow become more important than anything else in our lives.

Jesse rolled the window down as the car approached the soldiers. 

“Your papers, sir” the soldier said, looking at Jesse and then at me and my brothers.

“They’re with me” Jesse said, gesturing at us.

The soldier returned Jesse’s I.D. to him and proceeded to closely scrutinize our cards. He seemed to be checking that the photos matched our faces, because he asked Jesse to roll down the window by Isaac’s seat.

“Can you tell him to get up?” he ordered Isaac, pointing at Zac’s head, whose face was totally covered by a curtain of hair.

“Yes, sir” Isaac hurried to answer - “Zac….Zac! Wake up, buddy! Come on…!” he said, shaking him a little harder than he would have done in different circumstances. Our baby brother slowly sat up, looking more confused than ever as his eyes searched for something beyond the open car window. 

The soldier leaned further into the car, staring at Zac.

“He’s blind, sir” Jesse said, turning to speak to the soldier. Jesse’s explanation seemed to satisfy him because he stepped away from the back window and moved closer to Jesse’s side again. 

“Are you planning any trips outside the state soon?” he asked Jesse.

“No trips planned, sir”.

“Good. You can go through now” the soldier said, waving us forward.  

“That was a code word” Jesse said, after we had gone past the barricades.

“A code word for what?” Isaac asked before I had a chance to.

“To see if I needed help. When he saw you had DPS cards…well you look harmless enough but you could have had a gun pointed at me…or even have a bomb strapped around yourselves” he shrugged. “There’s a coded question that changes every month, every neighbourhood gets a different one. When I said I had no trips planned, it meant that you weren’t holding me hostage” he said. 

“Wow…are things that bad out here?” I asked.

“Well, it depends. It’s just an extra precaution. No offence guys, but you don’t exactly look capable of kicking my arse in a fight” Jesse laughed.

He was right: Isaac and I had been losing weight steadily since leaving the Compound, and I could barely remember what it felt like to have a full stomach. Even the simplest things seemed to take a big effort - walking, showering, standing in line at the mess tent. But at least Zac was doing well - we were letting him have most of the food I was bringing back from the City, and I thought his face didn’t look so gaunt anymore. I was looking forward to seeing him back to his old self soon, strong and healthy, the way he was before illness took the light out of his eyes and out of his life. He might not see ever again, but that didn’t mean that he couldn’t have good things happening to him, still. I would make sure of that.

“This is us” Jesse said, as he slowed down and eventually stopped outside a large brick house with large steps leading to the front door. The entire road was lined with similar buildings; they were big and looked strangely old; old, but interesting. 

“Is that your house?” I asked Jesse, staring at the impressive building, mouth agape. 

“Well I don’t _own_ it, I rent an apartment there. I don’t have the whole place to myself” he said, sounding amused.

_Maybe not,_ _but I’m willing to bet that you apartment is bigger than the place where the three of us lived for the past 10 years,_ I thought. Were we going to ever have a home of our own again? 

“Wow” was all that my brother and I could say as we walked into Jesse’s apartment. The door had opened into a big room full of _stuff;_  bookcases packed with books, framed pictures on the walls… a huge rug on the floor.  There was even an upright piano against the wall, and on a metal rack next to the side of it were several other musical instruments. _Is this where ordinary people live?_

“Come and sit down, guys. Let me help you, Taylor” Jesse said, walking me to one of the two big couches that surrounded a small table, also covered with books. I looked at the immaculate cream coloured upholstery and then down at my jeans, and hesitated. 

“What is it, mate?” he asked, looking confused.

“It’s just...I’m...we’re absolutely filthy. I mean, our clothes. We’re going to ruin it” I said, gesturing towards the couch and catching Isaac’s eyes. 

“That’s true” my big brother said, blushing and looking down at his own pants. Just like mine, they were covered in two weeks’ worth of grime. And Zac was in a similar, if not worse, state.

“Guys…..! Don’t you worry about things like that...!” Jesse said, with a mix of relief and amusement in his voice. “The covers are washable anyway! Now make yourselves comfortable. Who wants breakfast?”

~~~~~~~~~~~~

I had forgotten how good a hot meal could be. The rice and beans we’d been getting at the mess tent had no taste - it was just something to fill our stomachs as quickly as possible. But what Jesse had put in front of us was delicious: scrambled eggs, heaped up high over two pieces of toast, and a pile of bacon slices next to it. The amount of bacon on my plate would have been a meal for three back at the Compound. I glanced at Isaac: he seemed equally stunned, while Zac seemed frozen, his nose tipped downward as if he was staring down at the plate I knew he couldn’t see. I could tell from the way his mouth twitched before he licked his lips that my baby brother was hungry and unable to comprehend that the food on the plate was really _all for him_.

“You don’t like bacon?” Jesse asked. “Oh my God, are you guys _vegetarians_?” he said, putting a hand to his mouth as his eyes darted from the plates to us.

“Vege…what? No…no!” I said. “It’s just that…this” I gestured towards the pile of bacon on my plate. 

“…this would have fed the three of us where we’re from” Isaac finished my sentence.

“Oh. Well, I thought you might be hungry” - Jesse said, matter-of-factly.

“We are!” Zac piped up, turning towards my older brother expectantly. 

_Oh-oh. Zac feeding time_ , I thought, as Isaac took Zac’s plate and set to cut his food in small parts. _At least he has the sense not to attempt that on his own -_ I shuddered at the image of our baby brother blindly slicing through the massive breakfast, bits of bacon and egg landing on the spotless tiled floor of Jesse’s kitchen. I felt a bit guilty for tucking into my food while Isaac was having to let his own go cold, but I knew that he didn’t mind taking care of Zac - in fact, I suspected that he rather enjoyed it. And judging by how peaceful our baby brother looked night after night, using Isaac’s body as a pillow, I figured that he enjoyed the closeness, too.  

“I’ll get the spare room ready for you guys” Jesse said after we’d finished eating “Two of you can have the double bed and maybe one can take the couch? It’s pretty comfy” he added, as he cleared away the plates.

“We don’t need the couch!” Zac said, a panicked tone in his voice.

“O-kaay” Jesse said, giving me and Isaac a questioning glance.

“Zac! don’t be rude” I said, taken aback by my baby brother’s unexpected outburst.

“But...I don’t want us to be split up!” Zac snapped back, blinking to hold in unexpected tears.

“It’s okay Zac” Jesse said, putting a hand on Zac’s elbow. “You can sleep wherever you like, it’s no problem, okay?” he said softly, his voice instantly having a soothing effect on our brother. 

“If you get sick of these two, though, the couch is still available, all right?” Jesse said laughing, squeezing Zac’s arm. _Did I just hear my baby brother laugh, too?_

I loved the way Jesse spoke to us. It wasn’t just his accent - he had a way of saying something utterly normal and making it sound strangely funny. I’d never met anyone like that before - maybe because at the Compound everybody was train to _filter_ , and any attempt at humour was seen as incompatible with _filtering_. We had been brought up to believe that being funny was a weakness, an undesirable personality trait to eradicate, but Jesse was making light of serious things so that we didn’t feel uncomfortable around him. How could that be a bad thing?

“Let me show you to your new tent then now” Jesse said, motioning for us to follow him into one of the rooms that opened from a short corridor. 

Jesse’s spare room was larger than the one the three of us had shared for years when we lived with our mother, and only marginally smaller than the apartment we later shared; it even had its own bathroom. I wondered if Jesse, as a doctor, was particularly rich, or if it was common for people to have such big homes. Everything was big here - even the closet from which Jesse had taken out a pile of clean towels of different sizes before putting them on the bed. 

“I imagine you guys will want to clean up a bit” he said, as he stacked the folded towels into three identical miniature towers that narrowed at the top - a small face cloth folded in two acting as the last construction block.

“ _Please!_ I haven’t had a shower in _weeks_ ” Zac’s said, suddenly overexcited.

“Erm…we did wash him as best as we could in the tent, we used towels and buckets of hot water from the showers” Isaac rushed to say, stealing the words from my mouth. I really didn’t want Jesse to think that we had neglected to care for our brother.

“I know, but it’s not as nice as a nice hot shower though, is it Zac?” he said, with a hint of complicity. “Can I take a look at those wounds mate? If they’ve healed enough, you win a hot shower”.

Zac rolled up his sleeves and stretched his arms out, exposing the grimy bandages around his wrists. He was still wearing them since our visit to the hospital almost two weeks before; we had tried to get him to see a doctor at the medical tent on our first Sunday there; we knew Jesse wasn’t going to be on shift until the following week, but he had told us to take Zac to see another doctor to get his dressings changed. But we’d joined the line too late and they had had stopped seeing people before we’d got to the front. But we made sure that Zac took the antibiotics, and now he didn’t seem to be in so much pain anymore. Still, when Jesse told him to sit down on the bed so that he could take a look at his ankles, I couldn’t help shuddering at the thought of how bad it had been on the previous occasion, sitting on on the sidewalk outside the hospital. 

“It’s healing well, all considering” - Jesse said, almost to himself, as he unravelled the length of gauze that was wrapped around our brother’s ankles. “You did a good job at keeping him dry” he added, looking up at Isaac and me.  

“Does it mean I can have a shower then?” Zac said, expectantly. 

“Well...” Jesse hesitated, biting the corner of his lower lip as his eyes scanned and studied the skin on our baby brother’s ankles. As if sensing bad news, Zac shoulders slumped as he let out a dejected sigh. _You must be really sick of feeling so gross_ , I thought. 

Seeing our brother’s disappointment, Jesse put a hand on Zac’s elbow, like he had done before -

“....how about...”

\- immediately Zac lifted his head slightly -

“...you have your shower if you promise you won’t stay under the water too long? Then once you’re done we’ll dress those wounds up again and keep you dry for another couple of days. Do you think you can do that?” he said, involving Zac in the plan. 

“Yes, definitely!” Zac nodded enthusiastically with the widest grin I’d seen on his face since the day Jesse had given him that chocolate bar at the hospital; I caught Isaac’s eyes and I knew that, just like me, nothing could have made him happier than to see our baby brother finally smile. I didn’t resent that it was Jesse and not I who had made Zac so happy - I didn’t care, it didn’t matter anyway. I was just so grateful that our baby brother was getting a break from all the misery he’d had to endure for so long. And how long this break was going to last, I really could not say.

\-------

While Isaac took Zac into the bathroom to help him shower, I followed Jesse into his bedroom to find some clothes we could borrow. I sat on the edge of the bed, still feeling self-conscious about my dirty clothes, while Jesse looked through a chest of drawers, pulling things out and piling them up them next to me on the bed. 

“Jesse - ” I said when he had his back turned to me. “About earlier...what Zac said about the couch” I said, rubbing my hands down my pants legs - “it’s because...” 

“Taylor, it’s ok, I don’t mind if you guys prefer to share” he said, turning to face me.

“I know, it’s just that…it’s more than that” - I paused, taking a deep breath. After taking the pills, the pain had lessened, to be replaced by a drowsy numbness that was making me feel _calm_ for the first time in weeks.

“Okay…I’m listening” Jesse said, sitting next to me on the edge of the bed - close, but not so close that we could touch. 

_Where do I start?_

_From the end?_

_I’m just going to say it._  

“He’s scared of being in bed alone now”

“He was tied to the bed when I found him” 

“He’d rubbed his skin raw against the restraints - I don’t know how long he was tied down for, but he’d been at the Detox Center for three months.” I continued.

Jesse’s mouth fell open, and he made a sound as if he was just about to say something; I knew what he was going to ask.

“The Detox Center is where they take people who... _can’t cope_. They say it’s your Human Essence that causes all your mental problems, when it takes over ….and you can’t filter anymore.” I continued, my eyes fixed on the dark wood floorboards under my feet. 

“They say that if your Human Essence floods your system it causes toxins in the body, and that’s when they send you to the Detox Center.”  

I looked up at Jesse again and wondered if what I was saying made sense to him, as a doctor. What they did to Zac, was it right?

“So...Zac was there because he couldn’t cope...with _what_?” Jesse asked. His voice was gentle, but firm, as if he wanted to encourage me to keep talking.

“He...was down. Depressed, I guess. It started when he went blind, although...it was gradual, at first. Like, at first he was busy learning to adjust, to everyday things, you know?”  

Jesse nodded, leaning towards me. 

“And then, little by little, he started to get worse. He couldn’t work anymore, and he loved his job - he worked with children -” I added, guessing the next question on Jesse’s lips.

“He started to become more withdrawn, and unpredictable, and had these terrible mood swings, and sometimes he’d lash out at Isaac and me, he’d say stuff that...I’m sure he didn’t mean”.  Zac’s tantrums had not been easy to handle and revisiting those times was bringing some unexpected tears to my eyes.  

“Go on” Jesse said.

“He wasn’t leaving the apartment anymore and was missing all the compulsory drills. We tried to cover for him as much as we could, but eventually the Discipline Office got wind of it and he was sent for assessment. And then we couldn’t stop it, although we tried, you know?” - I said, hoping that Jesse believed me.

“I’m sure you did, Taylor” he said, reaching out to put his hand on my knee. I couldn’t help thinking that it felt good - even if he was barely touching me.

“So...after the assessment...he was sent to that Detox Center?”

“Yes. He went into the Infirmary for the assessment, and the next time we saw him was ...a couple of weeks ago. When we got him out.” I said, my voice shaky now.

“And he’d been there three months?”

I nodded and wiped my nose on my sleeve. Tears were streaming down my face now - quiet tears, full of unbridled relief for being able to tell someone outside our world, someone who maybe could _explain_? Reaching across to the bedside table, Jesse picked up a few tissues from a box and handed them to me, like he had done hours earlier. I hoped that this wasn’t going to become a habit for me. I’d done very little crying in the last few years - not only because of my training, but also because I had become very good at _not_ feeling. But in the last few days I’d been feeling like I used to when I was a new recruit at the Club House - vulnerable and raw, as if I had unwittingly shed the second skin that I’d managed to grow over the years.  

Jesse waited until I’d used some of the tissues to dry my face and blow my nose and then resumed his gentle, subtle questioning. 

“What did they do to Zac at the Detox Center then?” - he asked, putting his hand back on my knee. 

“I don’t know exactly. He hasn’t told us yet, and we haven’t asked him. But a friend worked there and he said they give people these cleansing treatments to make you ...purge yourself of stuff, not just throwing up but... -”

“..but also, you know, the other way” I said, not intending to expand any further.

“Right” Jesse said. “Well, three months of that would certainly explain why your brother is so fragile - not just physically, in his state of mind, too”. 

“He wasn’t always like that, you know? Before he was ill, he weighed more than me and Isaac” I said, almost protesting, resenting the fact that the only version of Zac Jesse knew was this pathetic, whiny _child_ that did not remotely resemble my real brother.

“I’m sure he wasn’t, Taylor.” Jesse said, his voice a little softer now. He waited a couple of moments before speaking again.

“You keep mentioning Zac’s ‘illness’. Is that what caused his blindness?” he asked.

I nodded, preparing myself to revisit another painful place of my brother’s recent past. 

“It was about two years ago”

“Zac came home from the Children’s Block complaining of a headache. I was still at work. Isaac noticed that he was running a fever, so he got a cold flannel to put on his forehead. That’s what our mother did when we had a fever.” I said, looking up at Jesse, searching for confirmation in his eyes. 

“That’s the right thing to do” he said.

“By the time I got back from work, he’d got worse. He said everything was hurting - his hands, his legs. Then he started to throw up and we couldn’t get him up from the bathroom floor - he was curled up in a ball, covering his head with his arms” I paused, steadying my gaze on Jesse’s hand, still resting on my knee. “We didn’t know what to do. Isaac went to the porter’s lodge to ring the Infirmary. He was there for ages, trying to get through to the person on night duty. When he finally did, they told him we had to take Zac there _ourselves_ ” I spat that last word out, unable to contain my resentment any longer.

Jesse blinked slowly, taking in the scene I was describing to him without interrupting me. I carried on.

“By the Isaac came back, Zac was covered in these red blotches, and that’s when I got really, really scared.” - my voice was shaky as I relived the moment when I’d realised my baby brother was in a really bad way. Without really thinking, I put my hand over Jesse’s; _is this ok?_ \- I wondered. 

“Keep going” he said.

“I was freaking out at that point, but Isaac told me to get a blanket, and he wrapped him well and then picked him up and said _let’s go_ ” - I said, still amazed at my older brother’s gift of decisiveness at crucial moments. “He carried him all the way to the Infirmary. I don’t know how he did it - Zac was a lot heavier back then.” I said, shaking my head sightly.

“People do incredible things at times of need” he said, looking at me with the slightest hint of a smile. “You would have done the same” he added.

“Yeah...but Isaac wouldn’t let me. We got to the Infirmary and the Health Officer on duty didn’t seem concerned at all. She told us to lay Zac on a bed and then disappeared for ages, and when she finally came back she was carrying a really tall glass of this dark orange liquid.”

“Dark orange?” Jesse asked, frowning.

“Yeah, it was almost brown. She tried to get Zac to drink it, but he was agitated and didn’t want to know, so then she took a big syringe without needle and started to squirt the stuff into Zac’s mouth.”

“Jesus Christ....”Jesse said, his eyes progressively widening as he listened to the account of my brother’s ordeal.

“...It went on for ages, until the Health Officer managed to get most of the liquid down Zac’s throat. And then, not even five minutes later, he threw it all up”.

“After that, she didn’t seem to know what to do, or didn’t care. She just put a cold flannel on his head like we’d done earlier at home and just told us to go through a processing drill with him. And even back then I thought, you got to be kidding right? My baby brother’s _ill_ \- how can processing help?” - I said, raising my voice now, past suppressed anger flooding back.

“It’s absolutely unbelievable..” he said. _Is that anger creeping up in his voice, too?_  

“I couldn’t stand there doing nothing anymore, so I ran to the Detox Center looking for my friend Layne. He’d been a nurse on the Outside, I mean, outside the Compound” I said. “I was lucky because he was just coming off a night shift. He came back to the Infirmary with me and somehow persuaded the Health Officer to let him give our brother some fluids, you know, directly into his vein?” I looked at Jesse for confirmation.

“Yeah, I.V.” he nodded. “Did he give him any antibiotics?”

“He asked...he asked the Health Officer for some medicine or other - I can’t remember the name - but there was nothing useful. I remember he’d seemed really shocked, because he hadn’t been at the Compound very long at that point. He couldn’t believe that there wasn’t even something called aspirin? I remember that word because he’d said over and over again. He said we had to get the fever down and told us to cover him with cold wet towels.

“And then I remembered that at the Club House,  on the top floor, there was this supply closet. That’s where they kept a lot of the …” I cleared my throat, heat suddenly rising to my cheeks “..the condoms and lubricants and stuff.” I glanced up at Jesse, and I saw something - shock, maybe - flash across his face for a split second. He mouthed “okay” for me to go on.

“In the supply closet...there were always various bottles of medicines there, for the Officers, I guess. As House Manager, I had the key, but it had never occurred to me to take anything, because I had not idea of what any of the drugs did.” I said, suddenly feeling ignorant and useless.

“Of course, you can’t just help yourself to medication” Jesse reassured me. He still hadn’t moved his hand from my knee, and it was now trapped under mine.  

“So...Layne wrote some names on a piece of paper - of the medicines I had to look for. And I ran to the Club House and snuck in and searched through that cabinet and nearly got caught by one of the Officers who was just leaving one of the guest bedrooms...but anyway, I found a couple of bottles that had similar-sounding names to the ones Layne had written down for me, and ran back to the Infirmary and -” I paused to catch my breath.

“And?” 

“And Layne said that the medicine in one of the bottles was close enough”

“He gave Zac two of the tablets when the Health Officer was out of the room. And he wrote down how many we were to give him and how often. Zac didn’t seem to get any better at first, but he didn’t get any worse, either. Layne would come and check on him as often as he could - checking that there were always fluids running from the bag, making sure we’d given him his tablets - until about three days later he said he thought that Zac was improving. The fever had gone down and the rash was gone, too. Layne said _‘he might make it now’_ ”. 

The palm of my hand was now sticky and sweaty over Jesse’s. Feeling self-conscious, all of a sudden, I moved it away, but Jesse kept his fingers resting on my knee. 

“Your friend Layne - “ he said - “Without a doubt, he saved your brother’s life”

“I know” I said. _And that wouldn’t be the first time_ , I thought, but didn’t say.

“And then...when did you find out that...” he didn’t finish his question.

“...it was the following day. When Zac woke up and started to cry because he couldn’t see anymore”.

\-------

I followed Jesse back into the spare room - he was carrying a  pile of clothes for us to change into; after we’d finished talking, he had pulled out even more stuff out of his closets  - jeans,  pajamas bottoms, shirts, even unopened packs of socks and underwear.

“I need to keep a fresh change of clothes in my locker in the hospital” he explained “and then I take  it all home to wash and ….” he shrugged. He had more clothes than me and my brothers put together had ever had. 

“Is Zac still in the shower?” Jesse said as we walked into  our bedroom  -  the shower was still running in the ensuite bathroom. “He’s been a while now” he said,  putting the clothes down on the bed. “It’s not good for his....- _oh!”_ he let out a surprised laugh and motioned for me to look closer.

I took a step towards the bed. Barely visible under the duvet - save for a few strands of wet hair - and fast asleep, was Zac. He was snoring softly - the rising and falling of his body acting as the only clue that what was under the quilted cover was indeed my baby brother and not just an inanimate bundle of rags. Once again, Zac hadn’t taken very long to make himself at home - whether it was the back of a truck, a bus, a tent or a stranger’s spare room, he  somehow knew how to instantly make the place _his own._

The bathroom door opened behind us and Isaac emerged with a towel wrapped around his waist, revealing just how thin he had become within the space of a couple of weeks.

“I...I thought I’d let you two talk and have a shower myself” he said, shuffling his naked feet on the wooden floor.

“Good thinking” Jesse said “and I’m glad to see that Zac made himself at home” he laughed.

“Erm, yes he did” Isaac said, the corners of his mouth twisting into a tentative grin. 

We stared at Zac in amusement for a few moments, until Jesse looked at his watch.

“Well guys, how about we all catch some sleep now,-- it’s been a _looong_ night.”

“Don’t you have to go to work?” I asked, hoping that wouldn't be the case. Because of me, Jesse had been up all night and I couldn’t help feeling a bit guilty.

“Day off” Jesse smiled. “You were lucky, last night - it was the end of my shift and I was able to sneak out to come and get you” he said. 

~~~~~~~~~

_Lucky_ , I thought, a little later, after Isaac had helped me take a shower that had finally washed two weeks’ worth of dirt away from my skin.

_Am I lucky?_ I wondered as I let my brother help me into clean boxer shorts and a white t-shirt that smelled clean - my movements slow and painful; I was exhausted.

_Are we lucky?_ I asked myself as I lay in the soft, warm bed, my brothers either side of me, safe, once again. _Maybe we really are lucky_ , I thought. _Or is it something else?_ There could be no _salvation_ now that we had turned our back to the very beliefs that had ruled our whole lives;  there was no hope to ever walk in _the way of the Shepherd_ again.But was there really nothing left to believe apart from _luck?_ As my eyelids began to feel heavier and each thought floated away from me without a conclusion that I could grab on to, an overwhelming sense of gratitude washed over me; gratitude for what or whom, I didn’t know. And as I finally drifted off to sleep, my last conscious thought was one of thankfulness - toward Layne, for saving my brother’s life, and toward Jesse, for rescuing us, and toward the truck driver who only a couple of weeks before had given us the sleeping bag that had kept us warm for the past two weeks. _Lucky_. 


	10. Starry Starry Night

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> POV - Isaac  
> Chapter Word Count - 6,914  
> Warnings - Some sexual content  
> Download the compendium to The Innocents, the 'Flock for Dummies' Guide here:   
> http://www.mediafire.com/view/u8df21cj4ai791d/The_Flock_For_Dummies.pdf

“Dylan…. _DYLAN_!”   
Taylor’s mumbled words washed in and out, like an echo of something far away. There was no reaction: I was too comfortable in the soft, warm bed and too deeply lost into the most peaceful, restful sleep I’d had in a long time; I wanted to stay where I was, buried under the duvet. _Let me sleep_.  
  
“Dylan!”  
A kick finally brought me back to consciousness, and I opened my eyes. The absence of the blue nylon sheeting above my head confused me, and it took me a few seconds to understand what what happening: Taylor was thrashing his arms and legs in his sleep, calling out for Dylan.  
  
“Tay” I said, as I propped myself on my elbow to look at him. There were tears running down his face. “Tay, wake up”  
“Unhghgh…Dylan…” - this time a kick landed on Zac, who was sleeping on Taylor’s side; but our little brother stirred and turned the other way, his ability to sleep through practically anything surprising me once again.  
“Tay, wake up” I said, as softly as I could, but loud enough for my brother to hear, and shook him gently by his shoulder. “You’re having a bad dream”.   
“W-what?” Taylor's eyes were finally open and staring into mine - their unmistakable blue was watery with the tears that had pooled under his eyelids.  
“You were calling out for Dylan”.  
“Oh. I…” he sighed “I was dreaming ...never mind” he said, looking up at the ceiling. After a few seconds, he turned his head to me.   
“Ike? I wonder if Dylan’s all right…?”  
  
 _You wonder if he’s all right?_ Earlier, while I was helping Taylor take a shower, he had told me what had happened the night before. I had never trusted Dylan all that much, but learning that he’d left my brother alone to take a beating had made me really angry.   
“I’m sure he’s okay. Probably spending the money you got a broken rib for” I said.  
“I think…he just panicked, you know?”  
“Still no excuse for what he did, Tay” I said, moving a strand of hair from my brother’s face. The cut on his lip had stopped bleeding, and a dark scab of coagulated blood had formed in its place. It was very strange to see his face look less than perfect; Taylor had never suffered from pimples when he was younger, like I did, and had no scars on his skin. But there were other marks, invisible ones, that had scarred his face since he'd been recruited to the Officers Club House; as if his innocence had been scratched away with a pen-knife that left cuts nobody else but me could see.  
  
“I’ve seen it happen before, Ike. Some of the younger kids at the Club House, when they were scared… it was everyone out for themselves, sometimes.” Taylor said, almost talking to himself.  
“Maybe, but you wouldn’t have left him there” I protested.  
“No, I wouldn’t have left anyone there with that man” he said, looking away. “I just hope that he doesn’t go looking for Dylan, that’s all”.  
“At least he has no chance of finding _you_ , now”, I said. I wished I had been the one to rescue my brother, instead of someone we barely knew; it’s not that I was ungrateful to Jesse, but I wanted Taylor to know he could still rely on _me_. I would take care of him better, from now on, I resolved.  
  
I checked my watch - it was early afternoon. We’d been asleep for hours.  
I gingerly stuck a foot out of the covers: it wasn’t cold. I pulled the duvet down and stepped out of the bed. It was so strange to be wearing so little - just boxer shorts and a t-shirt - without being cold. I had dreaded every visit to the shower block back at the camp - the warming effect of the hot water always immediately offset by the pervading chill of the unheated, prefabricated building. And although my body was cleaner, once I’d put my dirty clothes back on, showering seemed a rather pointless exercise.  I looked at the neat pile of clean clothes that Jesse had left on a chair by the window, and chose a pair of jeans and long sleeve shirt. I put the jeans on; they slung low on my waist - only a few weeks before they would have been a perfect fit.  
  
After I got dressed, and after helping Taylor out of bed and into some clean clothes too, it was time to extract our little brother from the padded roll of duvet he had cocooned himself into.   
  
“I have an idea” Taylor said, sitting down by Zac’s side. Slowly, he pushed the duvet down from Zac’s face, uncovering our little brother’s nose; then, lifting a lock of hair from the pillow, he started to brush it over Zac’s nostrils in slow, sweeping movements.  
“Hmffmfmff”   
“I think he’s waking up” I said, finding it hard not to laugh.  
“Bit more?” Taylor asked, brushing the hair all over Zac’s face.  
“Hhmmff” - Zac covered his head with his arms and rolled over, wrapping himself further within the duvet.  
  
“That went well” Taylor chuckled.  
“I feel bad, you know, maybe we should let him sleep” I said.  
“Yeah but then he’ll probably wake up in the middle of the night and keep _us_ awake” Taylor pointed out.  
“True” I said “That’s definitely worth another try” I decided, climbing on top of the bed by Zac’s side. I slid my hand under a layer of the duvet roll Zac had wrapped himself into, and tugged at it a few times until it came unstuck from under my little brother’s body. _One layer down._ Then I reached under Zac’s back and and grabbed a handful of the remaining layer, and tugged that free, too, triggering an annoyed whimper from him. _Single layer_.   
I called his name as gently as I could as I pushed the duvet down from his face, exposing his shoulders at last. “Zac, come on buddy, wake up” I said, shaking him ever so slightly and causing a fluttering of eyelids. _Getting there._  
  
Pulling the duvet down a bit more, and fully intending to shake him a little bit harder, I slid my hand down from his shoulder to his chest, but once it was there, I couldn’t move it. I could feel my little brother’s heartbeat thumping away under the palm of my hand - the healthy, strong, relentless heartbeat of the brother I remembered before everything changed. It was hard to believe that it was the same person that I’d carried in my arms to the Compound’s Infirmary, burning with fever, only a couple of years before.   
 _If he doesn’t need me anymore, things will go back to the way they were before._  
I felt a pang of guilt deep in my stomach for being so selfish; I wanted Zac to be as healthy and independent as he possibly could, but I’d really enjoyed taking care of him and being the centre of his world for those few hours without Taylor. And now I felt as if I was being split in two: happy and relieved that Taylor was safe and that we were together, but also was facing the near-certainty that I would have to give Zac up again. That he was Taylor’s.  
  
“Ike?”   
My little brother’s hand covered mine. There was no hesitation in his voice: he knew that it was my hand, not Taylor’s, resting on his heart. He had opened his eyes now and was almost looking at me - his gaze just a little off, aiming at a place just behind my ear.   
“Welcome back with the living, Zac.” I said.   
“Did you sleep well?” Taylor asked.  
Zac responded by opening his mouth and letting out a huge yawn, giving us an unobstructed view of his mouth, tonsils and perfect teeth; then, he swallowed and tugged at my hand.  
“I need to pee.”

\--------

 

When we were all dressed, we ventured out of our bedroom, quietly, the patter of feet wrapped in clean, warm socks virtually silent on the polished wooden floor.  
Jesse was sitting at the kitchen table, reading.   
“‘Afternoon” he said, looking up. “Good timing, I’ve just made some coffee. Would you guys like some?”  
“Ermm” I said, glancing at Taylor “I… don’t know. I’ve never had coffee”  
“Really?” Jesse said. “Wow. How can you still be _alive…!_ ” he added, laughing.  
“I had it, once, at the Club House” Taylor said. “It was bitter and it kept me awake all night”  
“Well, that’s partly the idea, at least when you’re in Med School” Jesse said, getting up to open a cupboard. He took out three mugs and put them on the counter. “So, who wants to try it?”  
  
We sat at the kitchen table, our hands wrapped around the steaming mugs in front of us. Jesse had put a carton of milk and a bowl of sugar on the table.  
“You might not like it black at first”  
Feeling brave, I took a sip. I grimaced: it was _bitter_.  
“I told you” Jesse said, and poured some milk into each of our three mugs, then added a teaspoon of sugar too. Finally, he gave the three drinks a stir.   
“Try it now”  
We took tentative sips. It certainly tasted better now.   
“It’s so much nicer than the stuff I’d tried at the Club House” Taylor said, studying the drink inside the mug. Only Zac appeared unconvinced.   
“Can I have some more sugar?” he asked Jesse.  
Another teaspoon of sugar was promptly dropped and stirred into Zac’s coffee. He took a sip. His upper lip curled as he swallowed noisily. He turned to Jesse again.  
“One more?” Jesse said, looking amused.  
“Um, yes please”, Zac said. We watched him expectantly as he took the mug to his lips again. There was no disgusted face this time, only the squishing sound of Zac’s tongue running along his palate.   
“Yes?” Jesse said, trying not to laugh.  
Zac slid the mug towards him again. “Can I have one more?”  
  
Once Zac was satisfied that he had enough sugar in his coffee, I seized our chance to ask Jesse all those questions that had been bugging us since leaving the Compound a couple of weeks before. There were so many, and I didn’t really know where to start. I was eight years old when we’d joined The Flock, and now, at 32, I wasn’t sure if it was the Outside that had changed during the intervening twenty-four years, or if it had always been that way, but I hadn’t noticed.  
  
“Jesse, what’s going on Outside, I mean, in the City…” I started. “Why are there people living in that camp? Where do they all come from?”   
“Yeah and…why is it mainly…guys? Guys our age?” Taylor added.  
Jesse looked at us, blinking.   
“I guess you haven’t heard of _The Exodus_ ” he said.  
“The Exod…what?” I asked.  
“ _The Exodus_ ” Jesse repeated. “That’s what the media call it anyway. It’s been going on for a couple of years now, at least since the State of Depression was declared”  
“State of Depression?” Taylor cut him off.  
“As in the Global Depression?” Jesse replied, raising his eyebrows as if we were really supposed to know what that meant. Faced with our silence, he sighed and carried on.   
“I guess you haven’t heard about that, either”  
“The world’s economy never recovered from the recession of a few decades ago. It just got worse and worse and gradually it turned into a Depression. Like in the 1930s” he added, as if to clarify, then shook his head. “Anyhow….unemployment was getting out of control so the government introduced the Age and Gender Quotas to protect certain categories, namely, women and the over 50s.”  
  
I glanced at Taylor, wondering if any of what Jesse was saying was making any sense to him, but he looked equally confused.  
  
“So, anyway” Jesse continued “People are emigrating from the Northern States in huge numbers, mainly guys in their 20s and 30s because they can’t find work there, and Quotas haven’t been introduced yet in all southern states, although they will be soon.”  
Jesse took another sip of his coffee.  
“So as you can imagine, the Southern states are being flooded with immigrants from the north, and some local administrations are beginning to take measures to stop people from crossing the borders"  
  
 _Proof of Residency or Permit to Roam only. No travel south otherwise._ That’s what the soldier had said when we had tried to board the bus to go south.  
  
“Could that be why they wouldn’t let us get on the south bound bus?” I asked.  
“Almost certainly. They would have assumed that you were heading south to try and get work. Which, in a way, you were, I guess”  
“But why…I…I don’t understand” Taylor said, closing his eyes for a moment. “Why is it different in the north? How come the south don’t have these Quotas yet?”  
“Because” Jesse paused “Well, it’s complicated but one of the main reasons is that in the southern states there is still some demand for labourers and people to work in agriculture….and that kind of work is most suited to men, so the Quotas are kind of illogical”  
“The thing is” he continued “the President is the Quotas' biggest supporters - they were one of her party’s main pledges during the electoral campaign, and the main reason why she got elected, and she’s not going to back down, even if clearly the policy is backfiring quite majorly now”.  
 _‘She’ got elected?_  
“The President is a woman?” I was shocked. I vaguely remembered the President from when I was a child. I had seen him on TV, although I couldn’t remember his name. There was definitely a male President back then.  
“Jesus, you were really cut off from …everything, in that place, weren’t you?” Jesse said, taken aback. “Yes, she was already the Governor of Canada before the unification, and now she’s in her second term as President of CANAAN”.  
  
We stared at Jesse in stunned silence.  
  
“…and you don’t know about the unification, right?” Jesse said, shaking his head slowly “You’ve never heard of CANAAN.” he added, now stating the fact. “Wow”.  
“What unification? What’s _canon_?” Taylor asked.  
“I think I’ll need more coffee before getting into that ” Jesse said, getting up. “Anyone wants some more?”  
I shook my head. I was already feeling my heart race and I wasn’t sure I liked, and Taylor seemed to be of the same mind.  
“Would you like some more coffee, Zac?” Jesse asked, putting a hand on my little brother’s shoulder.  
“No…thanks…” Zac said, hesitating.   
“Do you want something else? Are you hungry?”  
“...ummmm....” Zac said, red patches instantly appearing on his cheeks.  
“I think we could all do with some cookies, actually” Jesse said, heading for the kitchen cupboards again. “Would you like one, Zac?” he said, putting a plate of cookies on the table - they were the type with chunks of chocolate inside, the kind of treat that we’d rarely been able to afford at the Compound.  
 _Would Zac like a cookie? What a question_ \- I laughed to myself as I watched our little brother tentatively reach for the plate and take a cookie, lifting it gingerly, as if he wasn’t sure he was really allowed. Once the cookie had made it safely into Zac’s mouth, Jesse continued.  
  
“How old were you when you joined The Flock?” he asked, addressing me.  
“I was 8” I said.  
“Ok, so the unification happened after….”  
“What _unification_?” Taylor asked again, impatiently.  
“The unification of the United States of America and Canada. CANAAN - Canadian and American New Assembly of Assimilated Nations.”  
  
I stared at Jesse in disbelief and I could see from the corner of my eye that Taylor was equally dumbstruck. I hadn’t known much about the Outside - a few fragmented memories from kindergarten, like singing the Star Spangled Banner and eating turkey at Thanksgiving, or seeing the President’s speech on television. It was the kind of fuzzy, vague awareness of a child, like knowing your name and last name, maybe your birthday. It was something I still took for granted - or at least I had until now. I couldn’t quite get my head around the idea that when we had moved into the Compound we were citizens of the United States of America, and now, on the Outside, we were in CANAAN. The real world we thought we were rejoining didn’t even exist anymore. Everything had changed.  
  
“So…how long ago did this happened?” I finally asked Jesse.  
“Well, it must have been at least twenty years ago, it was before I came here anyway.” Jesse said. “I’m from Australia” he added, as if to explain.  
“Australia?” Taylor repeated. “Is it …is it part of CANAAN now?”   
“Oh God, no!” Jesse jerked his head back in amused horror. “Hopefully it’s too far for that to ever be an option”  
“How far?” I asked.  
“Opposite hemisphere kind of far. It’s a continent in the southern hemisphere”. He looked at us. “We’re in the northern hemisphere” he specified.  
 _Well, at least I think I know what a hemisphere is_. _Unless that’s recently changed, too._  
“Why did you leave _Aus_ … _tralia_?” Taylor asked.  
“Well, when I came over there was a shortage of doctors, so I took up a fellowship and then got a job straightaway. But if I were starting out now, with the quotas and all the unemployment, not to mention the new immigration policies…I wouldn’t stand a chance” he said, punctuating his last statement taking a bite out of a cookie.  
  
“It’s…it’s all _weird”_ I said. That was the biggest understatement, but I was too confused to even try and articulate what I thought.  
  
“I know. It’s a lot to take in” Jesse nodded.   
  
We all sat in silence for a few moments, watching Zac polish off his third - or fourth - cookie. At least he seemed unperturbed by all the new information that we had just been given; his lack of sight was probably only part of it. Zac was only three when we joined The Flock - and although I had told him and Taylor everything I knew about the Outside, those second hand facts wouldn’t have resonated with him the way they did with us. Whether the President of the US…of CANAAN was male or female, it probably didn’t matter to him all that much. His world had always been even smaller than mine and Taylor’s - in fact, his world _was Taylor_.    
It had never been me.  
  
“Well…” Jesse broke the silence, letting out a deep sigh. “Maybe you shouldn’t worry about this stuff, at least for today. Just…take it easy for now. You’ve been through a fair bit already” he said, looking at Taylor - reminding me that only a few hours earlier I had been asking myself whether my brother was dead or alive.  
Instinctively, I put my hand on Taylor’s arm, as if I needed to reassure myself that he was really there with us.  
“Are you ok?” I asked him squeezing his forearm al little.   
“Um, yeah… a bit sore” he said, quietly.  
“I’ve been a very bad doctor to you guys” Jesse said, sounding as if he had just remembered something. “You’re due some painkillers” he said, pointing at Taylor. “And _you”_ \- he turned to Zac - “need dressings on those wounds if we don’t want to undo all my previous good work”.

~~~~~~~

  
After Jesse had taken care of my brothers, we all went back to the lounge. It was late afternoon and outside it was getting dark; only the day before we would have only just retreated into the tent for curfew, and the only light would have come from the camp’s floodlights, and from my torch.  Jesse drew the blinds and turned on the lights. The room was lit from every corner: a soft glow came from several wall lights,  and from a floor lamp by the piano; a globe-like light in bright orange plastic brightened a low corner table between the two couches. The room felt cozy and warm, and oddly, just as alien to me as the tent that had been our shelter for the past couple of weeks. What we had been used to was nothing like this; our home had been so basic and sparsely furnished in comparison, even if I had done everything I could to improve it, building shelves and fixing things here and there. But this was something else - this was _luxury_.  
  
My eyes wandered around the room, taking in every little detail - the simple but solid white bookcases lining an entire side of the room, the framed pictures on the wall - reproductions of paintings that although were clearly printed, still showed the brushstrokes on the original canvas. I stopped to look at a strange picture of a night sky with swirling clouds and stars, and a bright crescent moon, radiating the most amazing glow over the landscape below. I’d never know that stars in the sky could look so beautiful. _I wish Zac could see this._  
  
“That’s called _Starry Night_ “ Jesse said. “It’s one of my favourite paintings”  
“It’s….amazing”- I stared at the image, unable to really formulate what I thought. “It’s not like a … photo, you know? I can tell there’s a sky and there are stars but …. everything is so… _strange_ ”.   
 _Everything is so strange_. _Like the world is still the same but different enough to seem oddly foreign._  
“What does it look like?” Zac piped up.  
“It’s beautiful, Zac” I said. “There’s a dark blue sky, and all these stars in bright yellow, and the clouds are like…waves, pale blue, almost white waves across the sky. And the half moon makes everything brighter, like it’s day time”.   
I knew that my description couldn’t possibly do the picture any justice, but I really didn’t know how else to explain it.  
“You’d love the colours, Zac” Taylor said.  
“I liked painting with yellows” Zac murmured. He blinked repeatedly. My little brother wasn’t going to cry.  
“What about those instruments, Jesse, can you actually _play_ them?” Taylor said, swiftly changing the subject.  
“Well, erm, yes” Jesse said.  
“ _All_ of them?” I asked.  
“Yeah, although not necessarily very well’ he laughed. “I studied the violin for years, and I’m pretty good at the piano, but the guitar and the bass are just a bit of fun”  
“The music you play with…them” Taylor said “Is it like….the stuff you played in the car?”   
“In the car?” Jesse thought for a moment “Oh God no…! Not with the violin anyway. Although I guess that could be interesting”. A frown flashed across his face. “You haven’t really heard much music, have you?”   
“No…” I said, with a tinge of embarrassment. But it was the truth: making and playing music was forbidden in the Flock - with the exception of official hymns that were pre-recorded and would occasionally be played at special events. Nobody knew who had composed them and recorded them. I’d heard music when I was very young, before moving into the Compound, but I couldn’t remember what anything sounded like.  
  
“Can you play us something?” Zac asked.   
“….if you want to” Jesse said, looking a bit unsure.  
“Yes please!” Taylor and I said, almost in unison. _Music,_ I thought. _I’m going to hear music._  
  
Jesse picked up the small wooden instrument and started to tighten up the screws attached to the neck. He placed one end of the violin on his shoulder and tucked it under his chin, then drew a bow-like stick across the strings, and started to play.  
  
We sat on the couch, Taylor, myself and Zac in the middle, and listened. The most incredible sound began to fill the room, a melody enveloping us with sadness, and beauty, and …. _here’s something else that I can’t describe,_ I thought. I couldn’t understand what I was feeling - it was something almost physical, as if my soul - _my mortal soul_ \- was being uprooted from my body after being stripped of its skin; and was left exposed to the air and the rain and the hottest, harshest sun rays for the first time. If this was what music was like, it all made sense now. It was the antithesis of The Shepherd’s teachings. We were brought up believing that human essence was something to be eradicated; that the mortal soul was a transition, a temporary vessel for something else. Something that, I know realised, was colder, emotionless, and soulless. There was no immortal soul to re-construct, only the pitiful remains of what was left of its mortal brother, broken, without hope, incapable of feeling. I could see - _I could_ _feel_ now that the rules I had spent most of my life trying to live by, were nothing but the absurd delusions of a madman. For the first time since I could remember, _I felt free_.  
  
When the last note had faded, none of us could talk.   
“Are you guys ok?” Jesse asked. “I hope that it wasn’t too loud or anything” he added, looking at us nervously.  
The only reply came from Taylor’s loud sniffing; as for Zac, I was almost positive that he had stopped breathing _._  
Jesse put the violin back on its rack and came to crouch in front of us. I felt I had to say something.  
“It was… well…” I swallowed, searching for the right words. “Stunning”.  
“Yeah” … Taylor said, lost for words too. “I… it…. _wow_ ”  
“Phew, I’m glad you didn’t hate it” Jesse said, letting out a big sigh of relief.   
Zac was still motionless, still digesting what he’d just experienced. After a few long moments, he spoke.  
“Jesse? Do you….do you think I could ever learn to play?”  
My heart sunk when Jesse raised his eyebrows in surprise - _what a stupid idea, Zac_ \- I didn’t know if our little brother could take any more disappointment. _How can you learn, you’re blind_.  But a smile crept up on Jesse’s face.  
“Y-yes, I think so. In fact, I’m pretty sure you could. Maybe starting with the guitar, or the piano. I’m sure there are methods for…. people with sight impairments” he said, nodding.  
  
A smile beamed across our little brother’s face and I saw something flash in his eyes - something that I hadn’t seen in a long time. And I could have hugged Jesse - this stranger who had helped us and fed us and taken us in for no particular reason, without wanting anything in return. _You have just given our brother some hope._  
  
“So…anyway…you didn’t know about CANAAN, you’d never heard music…” Jesse said.  
 _What next?_ I thought.  
“…have you heard of pizza?” he asked.  
 _Pizza?_ I might have had it as a child, at someone’s birthday. Maybe.  
“Is it food?” - Zac’s intuition when it came to anything edible was quite astonishing.  
“Yes it is, and if I order it now we’ll be eating it in half an hour” Jesse said. “What do you say, Zac?”  
“What’s in it?” our little brother asked, suddenly suspicious. Taylor and I looked at each other: _he’s fussy now?_  
“It’s like …. a big flat bread with tomato and melted cheese on top, and other stuff if you want. Like pepperoni, or bacon. But that’s ok, we don’t have to have it if you don’t think you’ll like it” Jesse said, winking at us.  
“That’s not what I said!” Zac protested.  
“So you _do_ want to try it”  
There was an unintelligible sound from Zac.  
“Thought so” Jesse said. “I have a sneaky feeling that you’re going to love it” he laughed.  
  
Barely half an hour later, Jesse was putting four large flat cardboard boxes on the table.   
“I got four different types that you can try” he said, opening the lids of the boxes. Steam was rising out of the piping hot food, releasing an irresistible smell that instantly made my mouth water.   
“You eat it with your hands, usually” Jesse said, putting some knives and forks on the table. “Not sure if it’ll be easier for Zac with cutlery, though” he explained.  
He needn’t have worried: eating with his hands was definitely something that our little brother could do extremely well by himself. I put a slice from each box on his plate, and after a couple of tentative bites he was off: expertly shovelling the pizza into his mouth between quiet appreciative moans, licking his fingers and his lips, hair falling into his face and finding its way in his mouth. It was quite a sight, although possibly not one to everyone’s taste.  
  
“I’m sorry about his lack of table manners” Taylor quietly said to Jesse, voicing our mutual embarrassment. “We did teach him, you know…I think he kind of …forgot in the last few months” he added, casting a sympathetic look at our little brother.  
“Don’t worry about it!” Jesse laughed “It’s understandable. It’s kinda sweet” he said, looking at Zac too.  
Zac looked up, lifting his head from his plate for a second as he swallowed a mouthful. He opened his mouth as if to say something, then put his fingers to his lips. His tongue was already darting out to lick the tips clean, but then our little brother seemed to change his mind. He slowly lowered his hand, feeling for the paper napkin by the side of his plate. Once he found it, he discreetly wiped his fingers over it. Then, turning to me, he said:  
“Can I have another slice?”

_~~~~~~~~~_  
  
It’s incredible what plenty of sleep and a few good meals can do to you, especially when you’ve had very little of either for a while. The next few days were, without a doubt, the most peaceful we had ever had. “ _Just focus on getting your strength back”,_ Jesse had said when Taylor and I had voiced our concerns about the future, getting papers, finding our father. He said that we shouldn’t worry too much, and that he would help us. I thought it was almost too good to be true, and inside, I worried that we’d soon be back on the street again, and this time it would be even harder to adjust.   
  
Taylor didn’t worry. “ _He’s not going to throw us out_ ” he’d tried to reassure me as he sat on the kitchen chair while I tidied the place up. We wanted to make ourselves useful, but with his broken rib there was little that Taylor could do apart from watching me. I didn’t mind doing the work though - it was like being a family again. I just had this nagging fear that it was all going to have to end sooner or later, and I was afraid of the future and of the Outside. Jesse had given us keys so that we could come and go while he was at work, but we hadn’t dared leave the house without him - it just didn’t seem worth the risk, and we were perfectly happy in his apartment. It was a warm, luxurious cocoon that was keeping us safe.   
  
When Jesse had a morning shift, he would leave the apartment really early and we wouldn’t then see him until later in the afternoon - sometimes not until the evening. He had been making sure that there was food in the house and always left some money on top of the kitchen table, in case we needed anything, although he soon realised that we had no great desire to go anywhere without him.  
  
We’d get up some time around ten, have some breakfast and then I’d do some housework, although Jesse insisted that we didn’t need to. Then we’d sit around and read - there were so many books on the shelves, books with stories, facts, photos of places we’d never seen. Jesse had shown us how to use the TV but it was too overwhelming to have it on when he wasn’t there, without being able to ask him questions. We didn’t really need to be entertained anyway. We’d always had each other, and in that respect, even now it was no different.  
  
It was a novelty to us to do what we wanted, when we wanted. Years of regimented life at the Compound had dictated every moment of our day - from  getting up in the morning, to meal times and bed time. If you were tired, or not feeling too well you’d have to work through it or face a trip to the Discipline Office. Now we could just take a nap without the fear of breaking the rules, and with a full stomach, sleeping was much easier.  
  
“I’m going to lie down for a bit” Taylor said that afternoon, before heading for our bedroom. He was still hurting a lot and after a while, he was too uncomfortable to sit up. Predictably, Zac had wanted to follow, the lure of the warm fluffy duvet and the soft mattress proving too irresistible. Not wanting to be on my own, I decided to join them and sleep for a while.   _Let’s enjoy the comfort while it lasts,_ I told myself as I climbed into bed, shivering at the initial coolness of the linen on my bare legs. I knew that in a few minutes my body temperature would be exactly right, thanks to the combined effect of the quilted cover and the intense heat that Zac radiated once he was safely barricaded between Taylor and me. We were still sleeping in the same formation we had adopted in the tent, but because of his injuries, Taylor was having to keep a safe distance from Zac - not just from our little brother's constant need to snuggle, but also to avoid suddenly being elbowed in the ribs in his sleep.  
I lied on my back and closed my eyes, and soon I was comfortably warm, and drifted off.   
  
I hadn’t been asleep for very long when something woke me - a movement or a noise, maybe both. My eyes were still shut when I heard it and recognised it: the same hushed whispers, the same unmistakable little sighs and tiny moans; the barely perceptible rocking of the mattress underneath.   _That same sinking feeling_ _inside me_.  
  
 _What did I use to do before? Sleep, sleep, just go to sleep_. I shut my eyes tightly and tried to recall every technique, every trick I had used in the past; but nothing worked. _Of course, it won’t work out here_. _I’m a hopeless, messy bundle of feelings now. This is the price to pay for my freedom -_  the realisation finally hitting me. I dared myself to open my eyes and turned my head toward them, slightly first, than all the way: I wanted to see enough to make my _mortal soul_ hurt.   
Zac’s hair was covering both their faces as he straddled Taylor; he was propped up on his elbow, for once careful not to hurt our brother. Now he was the attentive one, the stronger one. A side that only Taylor was allowed to see.   
  
 _The wet sound of lips crashing together_ \--  
 _My little brother’s hand between Taylor’s legs_ \--  
 _My eyes clouding with moisture and an involuntary, unexpected sob like a half-choked gasp for air -_  
I held my breath.  
  
“Ike?"  
  
I turned my head quickly and lied still, but I could do nothing to stop tears running down my face and onto my pillow.  
  
“Ike? Are you crying?” Zac said, climbing off Taylor and shifting closer to me. He clumsily searched for my face until I felt the palm of his hand on my wet skin.  
“Ike…” he said, leaning over me, his hair tickling me. “What is it? Why are you crying?”  
“Are you all right, Ike?” Taylor asked, softly.  
 _What do I say to them? I’m not okay. I’m really not okay, not with this and not with the way I am reacting to it, either._  
“Did we, um, … do something to upset you?” Taylor said.  
 _He knows?_  
“It’s nothing, I’m…it’s nothing”  
“No it’s not. It’s not _nothing_ ” Zac said, lowering his face onto mine. Our lips almost _touched_. “It’s not _nothing_ , Ike, is it?” he said, stroking my face.  
 _Oh well._  
“No, it’s not” I finally agreed.  
  
“Ike” Zac said, after a pause. “You know we love you, right? Right, Tay?”   
“Of course...” Taylor said, shifting closer to us. He groaned in pain as he slowly turned onto his side.   
“But you don’t love me in the same way as you love each other”  
 _There. I’ve said it._  
“You’d want us to?” Taylor said, sounding genuinely surprised.  
“It was different before” Zac said before I could answer. “You were different _with us_ ”.  
“That’s true” Taylor said “Before you became Zac’s favourite pillow. ” he added, smiling.  
“I liked it when you were _my pillow_ ” Zac said in a husky, low voice that I was sure he had never used with me before.  
Taylor drew a deep sigh. “Ike, stop worrying” he said, brushing my shoulder with the tips of his fingers. “Just relax a little, now that you can”.  
“Yes, relax, Ike…” - my little brother said before dipping his head lower and brushing his lips over mine.    
I froze.  
And then he kissed me.  
  
  
There had been moments of weakness in the past when I had imagined a moment like this - how his lips would feel over mine; what he would taste like. But I was always the one taking the initiative; even in my fantasies, I thought that I’d have some persuading to do; I assumed that he couldn’t possibly want me.  
Now I was _under_ him,  and I had the distinct impression that he was the one tasting _me_ while he pressed his body over mine with a strength I did not expect. I met his kiss and returned it, but still didn’t dare move. My hands were itching to bury themselves into his hair, to slide under his t-shirt, to feel his naked skin - anything. I wanted to take him. I wanted to _love_ him. But I was still frozen, paralysed.  
 _Why is he doing this? Does he just feel sorry for me?_  
I let myself get lost in his kiss, not wanting the moment to ever end. When he finally came up for air, a moan of protest escaped from my lips - all I could think of was that I wanted _more_. And judging by the bulge that I could feel protruding from my little brother’s boxer shorts, he, too, wanted more.    
 _He wants me?_  
I turned my face to Taylor, not sure if I was seeking his permission, his reassurance, or an explanation. He had a strange look on his face - unsure, puzzled, ever so slightly amused.   
“Well, this is a bit strange” he said.  
“Y-yeah” I mumbled, finding it hard to hold his gaze.  
“Good strange though, right Tay?” Zac said, expectantly.   
“Yeah, good strange” he said, a smile slowly creeping up on my brother’s face. “Come here” he said to me, softly, and put his hand on the back of my neck, pulling me into a kiss as his head fell back on the pillow. It was a different kiss from the one I’d just shared with Zac; it was a tentative, gentle kiss, full of tenderness and acceptance. It was as if my middle brother was trying to tell me that it was okay, that he’d make room for me. That I _belonged with them_.   
“Zac” he said when our kiss was over, still looking at me while his hand rubbed the back of my neck. “If you want to spend a little time with our big brother, it’s okay with me”.  
  
I’d always known that my brother was a generous man, but I could not have imagined that one day he would be prepared to share with me the most precious thing he had. He’d fiercely protected our little brother through the years, even if it meant degrading himself to keep him safe. Nobody had ever laid a finger on Zac other than Taylor. And now, he was letting me have him.   
That’s when I realised how much he really loved him. He was doing it for _him_.   
Because as soon as Taylor gave his permission and made a little space between us on the bed, Zac came to lie next to me, strong fingers gripping my hips, guiding me on top of him. For the first time, as his eyes pointlessly searched for mine, I was the object of that crazed devotion he had only ever bestowed on Taylor; and his need for me swept away whatever was left of my self-control. I let myself go as I rocked my body against his, no longer afraid to touch him; I stroked him over the thin, smooth fabric of his underwear, his every little thrust and moan pushing me a little closer to the edge. I hooked my finger under the elastic band of his boxer shorts and began to pull them down, uncovering him; and the feeling of his hot skin under the palm of my hand made me cry out his name as a current of pleasure fired through my body.   
None of us had noticed the door slowly being pushed open.   
  
“Holy shit…. what the hell are you doing???”


	11. The Lives of Others

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> POV: Isaac, Taylor, Zac  
> Chapter Word Count: 6,069
> 
> Please download the compendium to The Innocents - 'The Flock for Dummies' guide for anything cult-related. The guide is constantly updated as new content is added to the story.
> 
> http://www.mediafire.com/view/u8df21cj4ai791d/The_Flock_For_Dummies.pdf

Jesse was standing in front of us with a look of horror and disbelief that I’d never seen before on his face.  
  
“What the hell, guys?” he repeated at our lack of response.   
  
 _What did we do?_ I asked myself, struggling to comprehend his reaction. Next to me, I felt my brothers fumble with the duvet cover. _This is all going wrong_ , I thought.   
  
“I’m sorry Jesse, we should… have shut the door” I ventured, saying the first thing that sprang to mind.  
“ _We should have shut the door_?” Jesse repeated my question again, still staring incredulously at each of us in turn.  
“Um….” Isaac looked at me, questioningly.   
“What have we done?” Zac asked, his voice slightly shaky.   
“Wh-what have you done? You two” Jesse waved his index finger at my brothers. “You two are _brothers_!”  
“Yes…?” Isaac said.  
Jesse stared at Isaac, aghast.  
“You mean this is _normal_ to you guys?” he asked, looking at each of us in turn again.   
“Yes” I said, eventually. “Whatever you mean by ‘this’ “.  
Jesse’s mouth fell open.   
“Okay” he said after a pause. “I think we need a few words. And a lot of coffee”

A few minutes later, we were sitting around the table in Jesse’s kitchen, a mug of steaming coffee in front of us each.   
“Four sugars for you” Jesse said, adding four teaspoons of sugar into Zac’s coffee. _He’s still nice to him,_ I thought. _Maybe he’s not that angry after all._ I thought about what I’d said to Isaac - _he’s not going to throw us out -_ and I felt so stupid and naive for having trusted an Outsider. This was always going to happen. Of course we were bound to do something wrong. _And now I’m going to have to take my brothers back to that camp, and things will be a hundred times harder after getting used to living in a nice home like this one._ I looked at Zac and I could sense his rising anxiety, how he turned his head expectantly at Jesse, as if to seek for some sort of reassurance that it was all going to be okay. _He really doesn’t need this again_ , I thought. _Whatever we did that is wrong, it’s not his fault. Nothing has ever been his fault_.  
  
Jesse sat down next to Zac and placed his hands around the mug, as if to warm them up, although it was comfortably warm in the apartment. I decided to speak first.  
“Jesse, look, I’m sorry…. we’ve clearly done something wrong here but…I’m really not sure what?”  
Jesse sighed, his eyes fixed on mine. “You really have no idea?”  
“Well, something about us being brothers? But I really don’t understand” I admitted.  
He turned to Isaac, his eyebrows raised as if to repeat the question.  
Isaac shook his head.  
“Ok let’s just … clear this once and for all. You’re really brothers? As in, from the same parents? You weren’t adopted or anything like that?” Jesse closed his eyes as he leaned his forehead on the tips of his fingers.  
“Yes, of course we’re really brothers” Isaac said, sounding almost insulted.   
There could never be any doubt that we were related - Isaac and Zac really looked alike from certain angles; the same slightly protruding, rabbit-like teeth. The same dark brown eyes. I was the one who looked the most different - I have blue eyes, for a start, and paler skin. But we were undoubtedly brothers. And I remembered our mother complaining, on several occasions that we were _too much like our father_.   
Jesse seemed disappointed at our answer though. As if he had been hoping that maybe we weren’t related, after all.  
“Right. _Right_. And you two…” he said, looking at Isaac “…sleep with each other” he added, with a single shake of his head.  
“No! It’s never happened before” Zac rushed in to say “…I mean…not with Isaac - I..we…” - he froze, turning to me.

  
 _Thanks, Zac._  
  
“It’s _me and Zac_. Today, earlier was…different.” I said, glancing at my older brother, who was just staring at his own hands, outstretched on the table before him.   
Jesse drew in a big breath, barely stifling a moan of frustration.  
“Guys…this is _not normal_. Having sex with your own brother is _not normal_ ” he said in a carefully controlled voice, as he ran his hands through his hair.  
 _Not normal._  
We sat there, stunned.   
“Jesus” Jesse said, letting out a sigh that sounded like laughter, or disbelief, or both. “Is this…normal behaviour at your Compound?”  
“Well, it’s …it’s not… _not normal_. We’re not….a sanctioned couple. It’s not against the rules though.” I said.  
“What’s a sanctioned couple?” Jesse asked.  
“It’s a couple that has the official approval of the MPC” Isaac said. “The MPC stands for the Marriage and Procreation Committee” he followed, in reply to Jesse’s raised eyebrows.   
“There’s a committee for ….procreation?” Jesse looked stunned.  
“Yeah. Relationships…well, relationships with men and women have to be officially approved, not just for marriage but…well, _everything else_ ” I said.  
“Men and women are kept separate…even as children, isn’t that right, Zac?” Isaac said.  
“Yes, from when they are four, that’s when the class would be split at the Children’s Block. So for girls of four or older they had female staff.” Zac said, looking quite pleased to be able to contribute to the discussion.  
“So…you guys have never ….” Jesse started to say “I mean, you’ve never ..um... _mixed_ with girls?” he said, clearing his throat.  
“Isaac has!” Zac piped up, slightly over-enthusiastically.   
“Zac!”  
I looked at Isaac - his cheeks had turned a deep shade of crimson. His intimate life was something he didn’t like to talk about, especially to strangers.  
“You don’t have to talk about it, Isaac” Jesse said, sensing my brother’s embarrassment. _He can’t help being nice to us_ , I thought with some relief.  
“No… it’s ok…there’s not really that much to say” he said, looking down at his hands again. “I was introduced to a girl a couple of years back. They wanted…the MPC gave us temporary sanctioned couple status. There was…”  
He paused, taking a sip of his coffee.   
“…there was pressure for us to get married. They plan a certain number of marriages every year, I can’t remember the exact figure, but we were supposed to be one of the married couples that year.”  
“I see” Jesse said, with a tiny nod.  
“But I really couldn’t do it. I would have had to move out, and live with her….Zac had gone blind, they were going to split us up!” he said, looking up at Jesse, suddenly animated. “I couldn’t walk out on them, to… _get married_ and have children and work all day to support them when my own brothers would have been left struggling on their own?”  
  
 _And you love Zac. You have always loved Zac. How could I not see that?_  
  
It had been a real blow to us when, only a couple of months after Zac’s illness, the MPC decided that Isaac was to get married. We had always had each other, and now more than ever before, being a family was the only thing that kept us going. Not to mention that, from a strictly practical point of view, we needed Isaac’s allowance to make up for Zac’s inability to work. Now that he had lost his eyesight, and therefore his job at the Children’s Block, Zac had no means of subsistence, his allowance having been revoked as soon as it was established that he was no longer a _productive_ member of the Flock. This is how they dealt with people like him in our world: by simply pretending that they no longer existed. The irony of leaving the most vulnerable to fend for themselves was just one of those cruel twists of logic that were making it increasingly hard for me to accept our way of life.   
  
If Isaac had married, I would have been Zac’s only provider, and even with the tokens I could sometimes make on top of my allowance, we would have struggled to cover our rent and put food on the table once a day. Isaac and I went through our expenses with a fine comb during the course of several sleepless nights, sitting at the kitchen table, trying to figure out how to make ends meet once he was gone. Once married and in a ‘new’ family, Isaac wouldn’t have been able to help us - that was strictly against the rules, a means of disconnecting you from your feelings and your affections a little further. And also, I suppose, it was yet another way for the leaders to exert their power over the rest of the Flock.  The idea of having to leave us to struggle on our own tore Isaac apart:  the prospect of getting married loomed over him like a prison sentence. And of course, although I knew even back then that he didn’t love that girl, I didn’t know what I knew now. That he was in love with someone else, and that someone else was Zac.  
Fortunately, Isaac eventually managed to break off the engagement. He said he’d spoken to her and they’d reached an agreement, an understanding that things weren’t going to work out. He never went into details about that conversation - of what he'd said to her, of how he’d persuaded her. But together, they challenged the MPC decision and, probably helped by the fact that she had another possible husband already lined up, their SC status was revoked.   
  
Now I looked at my older brother, his discomfort clearly visible as he suffered the indignity of having to talk about his intimate life to a stranger. He had always been so guarded and reserved about it even with me; I can’t deny that I had been very curious about things - after all, he was the only one of us who had ever _been with a girl_. But he just wasn’t the type to talk about such things. Now his sex life was being discussed at the kitchen table. My brother did not deserve that.  
  
“So, ok, I understand that couples need to be approved by that committee” Jesse said, once Isaac had finished talking. “But…from that to sleeping with your own brother it is …quite a leap” he added, his pale blue eyes impossibly wide with disbelief.  
“I don’t know what to say, Jesse” I shrugged. It was true. How could I explain something that I had always assumed was normal. _How do you explain drinking water when you’re thirsty, or falling asleep when your eyelids become too heavy to stay open. The certainty of the sun rising tomorrow._  
 _How do you explain loving someone because they have been have always been there?_  
  
“Was it… a common thing? Did other people you knew … _do that?”_  
“Well, people don’t go around talking about their private lives at the Compound” I snapped. I saw a flicker of impatience in Jesse’s eyes, but it disappeared so quickly, I thought that maybe I’d imagined it.  
He took a deep breath in.  
“I’m trying to understand, Taylor. I think it’s fair to say that your Compound and this world operate under a very different set of rules”.  
“It’s a common thing to avoid relationships with girls until you’re in a sanctioned couple” Isaac stepped in. “Because pregnancy outside of sanctioned couples means at least a couple of years in RTC for both”.  
“That’s like …enforced labour” I explained, anticipating Jesse’s question.  
“And they kill the baby” Zac added.  
“They give the girl an abortion” Isaac added to clarify Zac's s last statement.   
I shot a grateful look at my older brother; on top of everything else, we really didn't need Jesse to start thinking that our people were ruthless baby killers.  
  
Jesse blinked a couple of times, still confused.  
  
“You get close to whoever is there, I guess” I said. “Brothers and sisters are split up from an early age, so…”  
“…and not everybody has family at the Compound, so they might live in communal houses, separate for men and women, of course” Isaac said.  
“So….anything goes, as long as it’s not with the opposite sex?”  
“Pretty much. As long as there’s no risk of unplanned..babies, they leave you alone. They never tell you in so many words, but they kind of…hinted at it during training. Because they know people have…well, people need to get close to someone, at some point” I said. I wondered if Jesse had…someone. Nobody had been round the apartment since we’d been there, and he hadn’t mentioned a girlfriend, or a wife. Did he not need to be with someone? Was it different for people on the Outside? Maybe they had so much already - plenty of food, and nice homes, and medicine if they got sick - that perhaps they didn’t crave the comfort of someone else’s arms - someone else’s body - lying beside them at night. Maybe needing someone was also _not normal_?  
  
“Well” Jesse said after a few moments of silence. “I’m sorry to have to tell you this, guys, but things are quite different in the real world, you know? Having sex with your siblings is most definitely not socially acceptable” he continued, giving me and Isaac a long, hard look. “Even being gay is not widely accepted yet, let alone sleeping with your own brother..!”  
“I’m actually pretty sure” Jesse continued “that in some states incest is actually a criminal offence” he said, his words causing Zac to flinch.  
“Incest?” I asked.  
“That’s what we call having sex with a member of your own family” he said.  
I looked at my brothers. _Who would have known that there’s even a special word for loving them._  
  
“So what happens now?” Isaac asked. I recognised that frown across his brow - I had seen it countless times, and it summed up my older brother’s entire reason of being. He worried about us: that was his job, the way it had always been. And now I knew exactly what he was thinking: that he had been right all the way along. That good things like this couldn’t last.  
“What do you mean?” Jesse asked.  
“Are you…I mean, we should leave…?” I said.  
“No! Please, it was my fault, I started it, Tay just wanted to sleep and Ike was crying and -” Zac said in a torrent of rushed words, his voice betraying his rising anxiety.  
“Guys, who said anything about you having to leave?” Jesse said.  
“You’re not … you don’t want us to?” Isaac said, surprised.  
“Of course not…” Jesse said, the most imperceptible smile appearing on his face. “I must admit, this whole thing is freaking me out a bit but it’s not your fault if you were brought up that way”  
  
 _He’s not going to throw us out…_ I saw my brothers’ faces instantly relax.  
“You are not gonna tell the soldiers?” Zac asked, still not entirely convinced.  
“No, I’m not going to report you to the army. I’m sure they have more pressing issues to worry about” Jesse said, and laughed.  
“But…what do we do now? We can’t just…not be with each other” I said, suddenly worried about any conditions attached to Jesse’s kindness.  
 _If I have to stop loving my brothers just to keep a roof over my head, then I’ll choose to be back on the street._  
“Look, I can’t tell you who you should or shouldn’t… _love_ , guys. It’s really not up to me. But when you’re out there…you’re going to have to be more discreet if you don’t want to get into trouble” he said.   
  
We nodded in agreement, relieved. But I couldn’t help feeling apprehensive for what we would still have to face on the Outside; we had been putting off the inevitable but sooner or later, we’d have to find the courage to step out of the safety of the apartment and into a world that seemed more and more strange to us every day.  
“Well, it’s been a long day” Jesse said as he stood up, collecting the now empty mugs of coffee from the table.  
“Unless you have any other surprises that you’d like to spring on me, I’m going to go and take shower”.  
  
Once he’d left the room, the three of us sat around the kitchen table, slowly digesting the new, unexpected turn of events. We were still safe, and Jesse was still our friend, but I felt deeply unsettled by our conversation, and I could tell that my brothers felt the same. I wanted to comfort them - to reassure them that it was all going to be okay, but I wasn’t quite so sure about it myself. I wasn’t so sure of anything anymore.  
  
“I still don’t understand” - Zac said, breaking the silence, his eyes darting from me to Isaac in search of answers they couldn’t see. “What exactly have we done wrong?”

 

“Jesse? Can I come in?” I said, lightly knocking on his bedroom door after I heard him come out of the shower. I wanted to talk to him alone. I’d already told him a lot about me, and after all that he’d done for us I felt that I owed him an explanation, or an apology.  
He opened the door in grey drawstring pants and only a towel around his neck, his hair still wet from the shower, and I couldn’t help noticing how good he looked. Unlike me and my brothers, he looked strong and healthy, like someone who never had to go without. I felt even more self-conscious of my scrawny body and pale skin; it was going to take some time to put some weight back on, and I still felt dirty from our weeks on the street. I scrubbed myself as hard as I could with every shower, but I still felt grimy, and I couldn’t erase that smell from my senses - the smell of that last night out with Dylan.  
  
“Are you going to just stand there?” - Jesse said, and gestured for me to sit down on the bed, like I had done only a few days before. He took a t-shirt from a drawer and put it on, a faint scent of clean laundry spreading in the room.  
“I don’t know if I can handle any more shocking revelations tonight, Taylor” he said. There were dark circles around his eyes, a reminder that he’d worked a long shift at the hospital before coming home to our unexpected drama.   
“I’m…sorry” I said, instantly forgetting everything I had planned to say - how I was sorry, and grateful to him, and hoped that despite everything he still had some respect for me. Now my mind was totally blank.  
“Taylor? What is it?” he said, sitting down next to me.   
“It’s just that…I’m sorry, Jesse. For…what you saw…I would have told you, but I didn’t know, I didn’t know that it was important”   
“I know, Taylor, I’m not…mad at you. You don’t have to keep apologising” he said.  
“I just wish I could do something, to make it up to you. You’ve done so much for us and all we seem to do is to cause trouble” I said.  
“Well, you really haven’t been that much trouble, but if you want to do something for me, you can start by telling me the whole truth. No more surprises, Taylor” he said, his voice gentle but firm.  
“But…you know everything now” I protested.  
“I don’t think so, Taylor. How about you tell me what you did for a living when you were at the Compound? You mentioned a Club House…and a supply closet stashed with condoms and lubes…? That doesn’t sound like your average hospitality job to me”  
“It…wasn’t” I said, heat rising to my cheeks. “But you already knew it, right? You’re not stupid, you’re a doctor…you know what I was doing out that night when I rang you! So why do you want me to tell you anyway? As if I’m not ashamed of it enough already without having to give you all the gory details?” I almost yelled, words pouring out with unexpected anger. _Where is this coming from?_  
“Taylor…” Jesse started to say, reaching out to put his hand on my shoulder, but I shrugged him off me.  
“What is it that you want to know? Is it how many guys I’ve fucked? If I enjoyed it? Or maybe did I like it better on my back or from behind?”  
“Taylor, don’t...”  
“Why do I have to spell it out for you, Jesse?” - my voice cracked on that last sentence and something inside me just….gave way. Sobs rocked my chest as I hid my face between my hands. _No point in trying to act like it’s nothing now._  
It had been different when were were still there. I’d got used to what I did, and I knew it was a means to an end. There was no choice, unless one counted RTC as an acceptable alternative. Somehow, knowing that I did what I did to support my brothers, and to keep us together, had made things acceptable in my own eyes. But now everything was different, and I couldn’t shake off that gnawing sense of shame that had grabbed hold of me on that very first night out with Dylan and that had apparently no intention to let go.  
  
Jesse let me cry for what seemed like forever. _Why isn’t he putting his arm on my shoulder now? Does he find me disgusting, now that he knows for sure? Why won’t he hold me and tell me that he still likes me… where’s Isaac?_  
  
“Taylor.. Taylor, look at me”  
Jesse put a hand under my chin, forcing me turn towards him.   
“Do you really think I’d try to make you feel bad?” he said, calmly. “Why would I do that?”  
“I… I don’t know” I mumbled, shaking my head. “Because I’ve let you down?”  
“How can you have possibly let me down, Taylor? It’s not that I expected anything of you. It was pretty clear from the outset that you guys were in big trouble, certainly not of the kind I see at the hospital on a daily basis.”  
  
I sniffed noisily, not knowing what else to say. I felt stupid and childish, now that Jesse had made me see how unreasonable my outburst had been. I wondered if it was because of his medical training, but Jesse certainly had made me look at myself and see the flaws in my logic. He didn’t seem hurt or insulted that I had lashed out at him only a few seconds earlier. In some ways, he reminded me of Isaac: calm, clear thinking, never judgemental.  
  
He leaned a bit closer to me, his fingers interlocked as he rested his elbows on his thighs. He considered his words for a moment before continuing.   
“Taylor…I just need to understand where you and your brothers are coming from. Like, your relationship with each other…I don’t want to judge you.” he said. “But it’s not easy. You know, I was brought up in a religion too. If I went by those principles, I should wish for the three of you to burn in hell” he added, a smirk forming on one corner of his mouth.  
“That….doesn’t sound very good. Hell, I mean” I said, unsure of what he’d meant.  
“No, it’s not…but please don’t ask me to explain what heaven and hell are. Not tonight. Kind of a big subject, you know?” he laughed.   
  
 _If he laughs, maybe we’re still good?_ I laughed too, giving in to the relief now washing over me. At last I felt I could relax a bit.   
“Jesse, what I did at the Compound…it wasn’t my choice” I began. And then I told him everything - from my first day as a new Club House recruit, to the compromises I’d had to reach to keep Zac safe. I told him the whole truth, as well as things that I had never been able to say out loud to anyone - not even to Isaac: the self-loathing that had lodged itself somewhere deep inside me and that had become a permanent, insidious presence that I no longer seemed able to shake off; the revulsion I’d had to overcome in the early days, when even my baby brother’s touch would make my skin crawl. The fear that one day soon, even my best efforts would no longer be enough to keep us safe.   
  
He listened to me the way he had done only days before - letting me talk, only occasionally interrupting to ask a question, offering a few words of encouragement when I was finding it too hard to carry on.   
“So, is that why you weren’t picked to get married, like Isaac?” he asked me when I was done talking.  
“Well it was never mentioned directly, but there’s no way they would have allowed me to be in a sanctioned couple. It was made very clear to me that I had to…be available at all times” I said. “But in a way, that worked out better for us, because I didn’t have to leave Ike and Zac”. I’d never thought about it in that way, but had I not been valuable for my _services_ , I would have probably been forced to get married.   
  
“And how about Zac, before he went blind? How come he wasn’t picked?”  
“He could have been…but the Officer I ….I…knew, the one who got him the new job, he was in the MPC. I kept him happy, and he kept Zac out of the marriage list” I said, shuddering at the thought of that particular officer.  
“Wow” Jesse blinked repeatedly. “Does Zac have any idea of the things you’ve done for him?”   
“He’s only just figured it out. That night…he made Isaac tell him everything. I was only trying to protect him, you know? I never meant to lie to him. It was just easier that way” I said. _I wonder what Jesse thinks of us by now. Three strangers with a life full of secrets._  
“Listen Taylor” Jesse began to say.  
 _I love the way he says my name. Ty-lor. Ty-lor._  
“I haven’t known you that long but it’s pretty clear to me that you’d jump in a fire for your brothers. They are very lucky to have you” he said, pointedly, locking those blue eyes on me.   
“Well…they’d do the same for me” I mumbled.  
“Probably” he said. He didn’t sound entirely convinced, obviously, but then he didn’t know my brothers the way I did.  
“Can I ask you one more thing?” he said after a pause.  
I nodded.   
“If you and Zac were…are together, what was he doing with Isaac earlier?” he said.  
  
 _That._ Everything had happened so quickly that I hadn’t really had a chance to process it. And with Jesse walking in on us, and finding out about things on the Outside, I had almost forgotten that I’d given Isaac my permission to make love to Zac. Trying to ignore my embarrassment, I told Jesse about what happened - how things had led to the scene he’d witnessed.  
“It’s never happened before. I never realised that Isaac felt that way about Zac.” I tried to explain. “And he was upset, and…that’s when it dawned on me that it must have been eating him for years. So typical of Isaac, you know, to suffer in silence” I said, now talking to myself.  
  
“Does it not bother you though, that Zac wanted to.. you know…?” a flush was now creeping across Jesse’s cheeks.   
I thought about it for a few moments, trying to find the right words to explain what was probably unexplainable to an Outsider. _He will never understand_.  
“Zac …has only ever been with me. He’s 27 years old” I shrugged. “I’ve had my…job and Isaac was engaged to that girl for a while. Zac’s only been close to me”.  
  
 _At least one thing I can be proud of - that I’ve actually managed to protect my baby brother for all these years._  
  
“…and he’s a grown man.”   
“…and I guess it’s normal, to want something new, someone new, right?” I said, unable to stop my eyes from slowly moving from Jesse’s eyes down to his lips. “I’d never be ok with it if it was anyone else. But it’s not _just anyone_. It’s someone who loves him as much as I do.It’s _our brother_ ”.

~~~~~~

  
They said that it wasn’t my fault, but I wasn’t so sure. I’d started it, after all. If only I’d gone to sleep instead of giving in to compulsion. I’d never been very good at exercising self-restraint, but since we’d left the Compound, I’d stopped trying. From things that I’d picked up from my brothers’ conversations, our teachings didn’t matter anymore anyway. We weren’t going to march to salvation alongside the Shepherd, after all. So did it matter if I let my human essence take over and if I enjoyed it?  
  
After everything we’d been through, at last we had plenty to eat and the most comfortable bed we had ever slept in. When we were at the camp, I’d wake up hungry and cold; at the end of the day, I’d go to sleep in the same state, or worse: a little hungrier, and a little colder. There was little room for any other type of _compulsion_ , but still, I had enjoyed sleeping close to my brothers again. During those endless months at the Detox Center, when even touching myself had been out of the question with my arms strapped down to the bed, desire had become yet another neglected bodily need - like being able to blow my nose, going to the bathroom, or scratching an itch. I’d become used to it, eventually; and had almost come to accept that I’d never feel my brother’s touch again. When I was finally able to rest my head on Taylor’s legs as we were left the Compound on the back of a truck, the contact was so comforting that I instantly fell asleep. Gradually, as the days passed, my mortal soul seemed to creep back in, and with it, a forgotten warmth that thawed whatever need for physical compulsion had been lying frozen inside me. And when, at night, I searched for reassurance and warmth as I lay my head on my older brother’s chest, my body began to respond in ways that I didn’t expect.   
  
I never thought Isaac would want me. I knew he loved me, of course, but in a big brother sort of way, the way he’d always acted towards me since childhood: barely tolerating me sometimes, if I was too loud or demanded too much attention. Isaac was always so _serious_. And then, when things became physical between me and Taylor, he simply seemed uninterested, turning to the other side, ignoring us.    
  
When, that afternoon, he cried when he saw me and Taylor together, I knew straightaway: I wanted him. But I didn’t just want him - I wanted to make him happy for once, something I never thought I’d be able to do for my older brother. I wanted to be the one who could stop those tears, and I wanted him to stop worrying about me, for once. I wanted him to _enjoy me_. Kissing him was like tasting him, and I ended up wanting even more of him - _all_ of him. I knew that Taylor wouldn’t deny me; I knew he’d understand. That I didn’t love him any less. That I needed to know what it felt to be with someone else, but that that someone else could only ever be Isaac.  
  
I worried about what Jesse thought of us now. He said that he wouldn’t stop us from being with each other, but maybe he still thought that what we did was disgusting. Maybe he was just too nice to throw us out on the street again. Maybe that was what he and Taylor were talking about now - how much longer we could really stay. Another week? Two weeks? Or maybe until Taylor’s rib had healed. And then what? Maybe another tent, or perhaps we’d have to travel again. Buses, roads, more camps. Did we still have our sleeping bag?  
  
Just thinking about the inevitable hardship that we’d have to face if we left Jesse’s place made my stomach rumble. _I’m going to eat as much as I can before we have to leave again. I might as well enjoy it while it lasts. I can get used to hunger again, I think. And the cold._  
  
And that’s when it hit me. I could get used to all of that, and I also knew that my brothers would always take care of me; however bad things would get, they would always find a way. But I knew I couldn’t possibly go without their touch - Taylor’s hands on my skin; the reassurance that his every kiss brought. The euphoria of those few seconds when nothing else existed apart from us two.  And now, the irrepressible need for Isaac.  
  
 _And I still can’t see how that can be wrong._

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

I couldn’t help feeling awkward that night, as I helped Taylor into the big baggy t-shirt he slept in, the memory of the kiss we had briefly exchanged still oddly vivid in my mind. I helped him lie down on the bed, supporting his back in my arms, while I tried to avoid eye contact at the same time. When his head touched the pillow, he grabbed hold of my wrist.  
“Ike, please”.   
I willed myself to look at him, only for a few seconds before embarrassment had the better of me and I had to turn away. But I could feel my brother’s eyes still trained on me. He tugged at my wrist until I looked at him again.  
“Ike, what happened earlier…” he started.  
 _What happened earlier was a mistake and I don’t know what was going through your mind or Zac’s, but I clearly screwed things up for all three of us. But nothing ever felt so good. Nothing ever will._  
“Will you stop feeling bad about it? You’re so easy to read, these days, you know?” he said, smiling.  
“All those years of filtering…wasted time then” I said, relaxing a little.   
“Yep. You’re an open book to me, now” he said, letting go of my wrist and walking his fingers to the palm of my hand, drawing small circles on my skin.  
“I didn’t mean to ruin things between you and Zac, Tay” I said eventually. “You’re everything to him. I’m sure whatever he was thinking of earlier… was just a _moment_.” I said, turning to look at our little brother, who was already asleep and softly snoring beside Taylor, the duvet covering all but the top of his head.  
 _A moment. That’s all it was._  
  
“It wasn’t, Ike. He wanted you. In the same way as he wanted that pizza the moment he realised it tasted pretty good. He couldn’t stop. How many slices did he have in the end? Five? Or six?”  
“Are you comparing me to pizza?” I said, in mock outrage.  
“Yes, I am” Taylor said, with a solemn nod.   
We both laughed, and at least the awkwardness was gone.   
“Ike, whatever happened earlier, it happened for a reason, you know? And when I said that I’m ok with it, I meant it. And now I want you to stop worrying about things”  
“But-“  
“But nothing. And if we’re breaking the law anyway, we might as well go all the way”  
 _My brother, the rebel_. However serious our plight was, he always knew how to make me laugh.  
“Alright then. If you say so” I said, switching the bedside light off. I squeezed my brother’s hand tightly for a few moments, then got up, and climbed into the other side of the bed. Zac stirred in his sleep, making soft, unintelligible sounds and adjusting his cocoon of bedding, until he was blissfully gone, again.   
I closed my eyes and smiled to myself.  
 _Pizza._


	12. Fake Plastic Trees

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> POV - Isaac  
> Chapter Word Count - 6,191
> 
> Please refer to the Flock for Dummies Guide for anything cult-related:  
> http://www.mediafire.com/view/u8df21cj4ai791d/The_Flock_For_Dummies.pdf

“Where is it that we’re going again?” - Zac asked, as I helped him button up one of Jesse’s flannel shirts. 

 

He had insisted that he could dress himself without any assistance, but hadn’t quite managed to match the shirt’s buttons to their corresponding holes, and as a result, the hem hung askew, one side reaching below the waistband of his jeans, while the other was barely covering his stomach. 

 

“We’re going to the police station to see a detective Jesse knows. He’s going to help us try and get some permanent papers” I said, casting a nervous glance at Taylor. We hadn’t yet got around to telling our brother that we were hoping to find our father - so much had happened in the past weeks that we didn’t want to overwhelm him with potentially more disappointing news.  

“Zac, we’ve been thinking…” Taylor hesitated, as if trying to find the right words. “We’re going to try and find …our dad”

“Our…what…why?” Zac said. “We don’t even know him!”

“Well, actually, I did know him, Zac. I still vaguely remember him…” I corrected him. It was the truth: although our father had never lived with us, I remembered him coming to visit at weekends, bringing us presents. But shortly after Zac was born, our mother moved us to a communal house where we stayed for a while, until we moved again, and then again, until I lost track of where we were. We never saw him again. To both of my brothers, he never really existed. 

“I don’t remember him either Zac, but… I don’t know, what if he did try to find us, but didn’t know where we were? Do you not want to find out?” Taylor said.

“What’s the point? He would have found us if he’d really wanted to…! And even if we do find him, he’s gonna think that we’re freaks, when he finds out that, you know…”

Zac hung his head, letting his hair cascade down onto his face. It was still hard for all of us to come to terms with the fact that our love for each other was considered an aberration here on the Outside. We’d probably never fully comprehend why, but Jesse had made it clear that people wouldn’t be as understanding as him. Zac was right: why would our father be any different?

“Well, maybe he’ll be okay with it” Taylor said “If we explain things. We have to try, Zac”

“It’s a waste of time” Zac said.

“Either way, Zac, we have to try and get some permanent papers, otherwise…we’re nobodies out here. Those temporary cards we got at Blue City are  useless. No one’s ever going to give us a job or a place to live if we’re basically classed as Displaced People” I said, smoothing the front of our little brother’s shirt, which was now correctly buttoned up.

“And we’re going to need to earn some money soon; we can’t expect Jesse to support us forever” Taylor added.

“Are you guys ready?” Jesse asked as he walked into the room. He dropped three thick coats on the bed, followed by a small pile of gloves, scarves and woolly hats. “It’s cold outside. You’d better wrap up”.

 

 

\--------

 

 

The police station was an imposing grey concrete building guarded by soldiers in green uniforms who meticulously checked our DPS cards before letting us go inside. It was our first foray outside since we’d gone to stay with Jesse, and as we walked through the open plan offices, the background chatter and the telephones’ constant ringing felt like an auditory assault on my eardrums, accustomed as I were now to the comforting quietness of the apartment. Judging by the way Zac was clinging on to Taylor’s arm, flinching at every new noise that reached him, it was even worse for him. 

 

“We’re here to see Detective Weathers” Jesse announced us to a secretary behind a desk placed immediately outside an enclosed corner office.

“Your names?” she asked, casting a curious glance at the three of us. I hoped that seeing Zac holding on to to Taylor’s arm wouldn’t give us away. _Jesse never said if it’s a crime in this state_ , I thought, looking at the framed photographs of uniformed police officers on the wall behind the secretary’s desk. _I hope she realises that Zac is blind._

 

“Are you ok?”, Jesse said, turning to Taylor as the woman disappeared into the office behind her. 

“Yeah, just…are you sure it’s good idea? After what you said about… everything, you know” Taylor said, echoing my worries out loud. “And with that Exodus going on. What if they send us back?”

“Nobody’s going to send you back to that place, Taylor” Jesse said in a reassuring tone. “And I told you, I know Detective Weathers and we can trust him.”

On our way to the station, Jesse had told us that he’d met Detective Weathers when one of the suspects in a case had ended up in the ER, making Jesse a witness in the case.

 

“Dr Adams!” - A voice boomed from the door that had suddenly opened. “And I guess these are the friends you were telling me about!”

I couldn’t help but stare in awe at the man standing in front of us, grinning and holding his hand out. He was very…. _black_.And huge. He was taller than Taylor, and massively built. _I wouldn’t want to be on the wrong side of this guy_ , I thought.

“Hello Jay” Jesse said, shaking the man’s hand and getting pulled into some kind of bear hug. 

“Jesse, _my-te_!” the man said, lightly slapping Jesse on the back. _Is he making fun of Jesse’s accent? Jesse doesn’t seem offended._

“So, Isaac, Taylor and Zac, right? Well, come on in” he said, showing us into his office, ignoring the secretary’s curious glance.

 

He pulled a couple of chairs from the back of the room and put them next to the two that were already placed in front of his desk. 

“Sit down” he gestured towards the seats.

Taylor guided Zac to sit down, then we took a seat on either side of him.

“So, Jesse tells me that you are looking for some lost family?” Detective Weathers said, leaning back on his chair. 

“Yes, well, yes sir, we- we are hoping to find our father” Taylor said, stumbling over his words. “W-we don’t have any papers. It’s…complicated and - ” he said, turning to Jesse with a pleading look.

“Jesse did explain your situation briefly on the phone” Weathers cut him off. “You were brought up in that Flock cult right?”

We nodded. _Cult._

“Why don’t you start from the beginning” he said “Where were you born?”

“Well… I think I was born in San Diego. I think that’s what it’s called, right?” I said.

“That’s right, that’s in what was called California before the unification” the Detective said. “It’s part of the southern states now. What about you two?” he continued, addressing Taylor and Zac. Taylor turned to me questioningly. 

“I’m pretty sure they were also born there. I’m almost certain about Zac, anyway. I was five, and I remember where we lived at that time.”

 

I remembered Zac’s arrival very well. We were living in a trailer park at the time, and the addition of a newborn baby to our already cramped living quarters had immediately put a visible strain on our mother’s already fragile state of mind. Zac cried a lot, and it wasn’t long before she couldn’t cope anymore. She moved Zac’s cot from her tiny bedroom to the alcove where Taylor and I shared a bed, and showed me how to change a diaper. From that day onwards, every night, before bedtime, she’d heat up a bottle and leave it by the cot; and then she’d kiss me and say _‘my little man’s going to watch over his baby brother now”_. And so I did. And never stopped.

 

“Did you live with both of your parents?” the Detective asked.

 

“We lived with our mother. Our father visited sometimes. At least, I think that was our father. I think that’s what he’d asked us to call him” I added, suddenly not so sure of even the simplest fact.

“When he visited, did he stay the night?” he asked, scribbling on his notepad.

“Maybe. Sometimes. I’m…I think he did sometimes but not always” I said. I could still see my mother cry as she clung to the man we called father as he tried to say goodbye. After he left she wouldn’t speak to us for what seemed like hours. She’d just go to her room and cry. 

Weathers put the pen down and looked at us.

“So, do we take it that your parents weren’t married?” he asked.

“I… I don’t know…our mom always told us that he had to be away for work. But… he was away a lot. He never lived with us. ” I offered as some kind of answer. 

“Ookay, well, do you have your father’s family name?” he asked, patiently.

I looked at Taylor - he stuck his bottom lip out, shaking his head. 

“I have no idea. I think his name was Charlie but I’m not 100% sure ” I admitted. “I know our family name is Anderson but …I don’t know if that’s our father’s last name, too”. _How can I not know this. How come I never asked mom,_ I thought. But maybe the reason why I’d never asked was that I knew even back then that that subject was off-limit with our mother. 

“We’ll have to work with that for the time being then” Weathers said, and then proceeded to ask several more questions, this time about our mother: her first name, her date of birth, which we only partially knew, whether we had ever met her our grandparents - which we hadn’t. Our own dates of birth, which we were able to reconstruct as I knew mine, and I knew that Taylor and Zac were three and five years younger than me, respectively. 

He asked whether we had middle names, but we didn’t know. I did most of the talking, as I was the only one who remembered enough from our early childhood, but what I could recollect seemed hazy, unreliable. It gradually dawned on me that we had made it to adulthood without having the faintest idea of who we really were, and where we came from. I couldn’t suppress a strange longing for a real family: a family with grandparents, uncles, aunts and cousins. A family with roots. _But at least I’ve always had my brothers._

 

“Well, let’s see what we can find with what we know then” Weathers said, tearing the sheet of paper he had been writing on from his notepad. He got up from his chair. We followed suit, except for Zac, who just looked up, craning his head towards me. As I put a hand under his armpit to pull him up, I noticed that he had been playing with the tassels of his woolly scarf, managing to separate every thread from each individual strand. The hem of the scarf was now fluffy mess. _I hope that Jesse doesn’t want it back_.

 

 

We followed Detective Weathers back to the station’s main floor and stopped at the desk occupied by a man in glasses. He was roughly my age and seemed completely absorbed by images on his computer screen: they looked like cards, like the ones that came in the pack our mother had when we lived in the trailer. 

“Ahem! Daniels?” - Weathers said, making the man jump. I couldn’t help notice that he quickly hit several keys on the keyboard, changing the screen to something that said _“CANAAN - Unified Bureau of Investigation”_

“Yes Sir! Sorry Sir! Erm, how can I help you Sir” he said, his face turning a deep shade of red.

“As you’re clearly not very busy…I’d like you to throw these names into the UBI database and see what comes out” Weathers said, handing Daniels the sheet of paper with the notes from our meeting.

“Let’s see…” he said, his eyes rapidly scanning the bit of paper in front of him. “What are we looking for, exactly?”

“Anything you can find about these three young men here. We need to find their official I.D. and we want to trace their father”, Weathers said pointing at us. “You’ve got their mother’s name, partial date of birth, last name - possibly the father’s, unconfirmed - see what you can do” he said. 

He turned to us again. “If it’s in the system, Daniels will find it. He’s a whizz with these databases” he said, patting Daniel’s back so hard that his upper body was propelled forwards and almost crashed on the computer screen.

 

“Let’s see. If we start with the mother’s records… that might give us all the information we want…mother’s name… D.O.B., partial, no year, place of birth - San Diego?”

I watched his fingers reach and strike the keys as he read out from Detective Weathers’ notes.

_Olivia, Anderson._

_Our mother._

He pressed ‘Enter’.

The words ‘PERFORMING SEARCH’ flashed on the screen, and I felt my stomach tighten. 

_NO RECORD FOUND._

 

“Hmm, that’s strange” Daniels said. “Are you sure that’s how you spell her name?” he asked me.

“Yeah, definitely. That’s how she always wrote it” I said.

“Let’s try with a partial. Just the first few letters of the first and last names” Daniels said, already typing into the keyboard. The search message appeared again for a few seconds. Then again, _NO RECORD FOUND_.

“How can that be possible?” Taylor said.

“Well, it could be a number of reasons… let’s just search by your individual names - the dates of birth should narrow it down” Daniels said. 

One by one, our names were entered into the database - Isaac Anderson, Taylor Anderson, Zachary Anderson. 

The screen flashed _NO RECORD FOUND_ at the end of every search.

“Hmmm” Daniels said, frowning at the screen.

“Could it be that you’re registered with your father’s last name, and your mother never told you?” Jesse asked me.

“I don’t know…it’s possible, I guess” I had to admit. 

“That doesn’t explain why there’s no record on your mother though. Even if she had been married to your father, both his family name and her maiden name would show” Daniels said.

“Did you search for partial matches?” Weathers said.

“Of course. I set up the search to scan through partials automatically” Daniels said, sounding slightly offended.

Zac shuffled impatiently next to me. _Maybe he was right and this is all a waste of time_.

“Daniels, can you cross-check with the MPD?” Weathers said. “The Missing Persons Database. Your father may have reported you missing when your mother took you away; he would have had to give your full names”  he explained.

“The MPD hasn’t been updated since the Exodus started though” Daniels said, hesitantly.  

“These boys have been away from way before that time” Weathers said.

 

Daniels keyed in our names into another database once again, starting from mine, and this time a series of blue squares ran intermittently from left to right, scanning, searching for any traces of our lives.  It seemed to take forever before the first result was displayed on the screen: _NO MATCH._ Behind me, Weathers exhaled sharply. Taylor’s name was entered, then Zac’s, both times with the same result: _NO MATCH._

 

“I…I really don’t know why this is happening” Daniels stuttered. “I’ve searched correctly - the only explanation is that the names I’m entering are not the names that these…. gentlemen have been registered under. That, or they were never reported missing” he said, turning apologetically to Weathers. 

“So….that’s it? Basically, we don’t exist?” Taylor said, shaking his head in disbelief. “Forget finding our father, how are we supposed to get those papers?” he said, his eyes already glistening with tears of frustration. I knew what he was thinking: _another disappointment. Another brick wall._

“Is there another way we can look for these records?” Weathers asked Daniels. 

“Well, technically, there is….if their births were registered pre-unification, they would have been recorded in the old US Census Bureau database”

“But all the data should have been ported across to the new system by now” Weathers said.

“It should have been but…let’s just say that the migration of data has been rather…patchy at times”

“Why am I not surprised…” Weathers sighed. “Can you check the old US Census then?”

“I can but it’s going to take some time, the USCB database runs in an operating system called Windows, which has been obsolete for years. The only way to access it is via a virtual machine” Daniels said. “That’s a piece of software that can…pretend to be running a different OS. We only have that installed in a machine over at the Tech Lab. The VM software is very CPU intensive and-“

“Fine. Make it a priority” Weathers said, cutting Daniels’ technical explanation short. “How long will it take?”

“It depends, that one computer is booked back-to-back by other agencies across the city” Daniels said. “I’ll call Tech Lab now and-“

“Just let me know when it’s done, thanks Daniels” Weathers said, patting him on the back again. “I will call you as soon as I hear anything” he then said, turning to Jesse. “Hopefully it won’t take more than a couple of days” he added, addressing Taylor and me. “We’ll get to the bottom of this, I’m sure.”

We walked out of the police station in silence, all of us obviously quietly contemplating the new unforeseen layer of complications that we were now having to face just to be able to prove our existence. We got inside Jesse’s car - Taylor in the front seat, Zac and I sitting in the back as usual, my little brother’s hand firmly gripping the inside of my arm. 

“Are you ok, Zac?” I quietly asked him.

“Hmm” he shrugged.

“What is it?”

“I knew it was going to be a waste of time”

“Zac…we have to do this. We need to get some proper I.D. at least. And if we find our dad…well, wouldn’t you want to meet him?” I said, putting my hand over his.

“No. If he’d wanted to, he would have found us. He doesn’t care, and neither do I. We already are a family, and we don’t need him.”

 

\------

 

Dusk had descended over the City as we drove back from the police station. Jesse had put some music on, the soothing melody accompanying the sped-up sights that whizzed past us. Things looked different since our last drive across the city several days before - everything seemed to be….brighter. Strings of tiny lights were suspended across the street, forming a strange, illuminated canopy that cut across the city like trail of a comet. Decorated trees, also flickering with intermittent lights, occupied every other shop window. Now I remembered.

“Jesse, is this… Christmas?”

“It is! You remember it?” Jesse said, looking at me through the rear view mirror.

“I think so. I remember the lights, and the trees. I think we had a small fake plastic tree in our trailer. That’s where our mom put presents, I think. Do you think that’s possible?” I asked Jesse, leaning into the space between the front seats. 

“That’s where people put Christmas presents, under the tree. Do you remember that, Taylor?” he asked my brother.

“Not really. I don’t think so.” he said, with a hint of disappointment.

“You were only three years old when we went to live in the first shared house, Tay. And I’m sure we didn’t get a tree after leaving the trailer” I said.

“So, when you still lived in the trailer…did your dad spend Christmas with you?” Jesse asked me.

I thought about it for a moment - the memories of many childhood winter mornings all merging into one. I remembered fragments, but it was hard to put together a whole scene.

“I really don’t know” I said eventually. “I think he brought us presents though”. 

_Tearing open the wrapping paper; a toy truck. Or maybe it was a fire engine?_

_Fragments._

_Taylor slamming both hands on the unopened box with all the disproportionate strength of a toddler. Our mom unwrapping the paper for him._

I couldn’t be absolutely sure but I had the distinct impression that what I could remember wasn’t a happy occasion. Had our mom been crying? Did she ask him to stay, or was my mind filling in the gaps? 

 

I leaned back on my seat and stared out of the window again. Buildings gave way to the familiar fenced parkland that had been our home for almost two weeks. Blue City. Glancing at Taylor, I saw he was staring right ahead, unblinkingly, concentrating on the road in front of us as if he was the one doing the driving, trying to avoid looking at the camp. The camp, with its memories of that time with Dylan that was still giving my brother nightmares every night. I drew a quiet sigh of relief when the trees were replaced by buildings again and the park was well behind us.

 

We were almost home when I noticed a series of vertical banners attached to the streetlights flanking the sides of the long, treelined avenue we were driving down. 

‘Charlton McAllister for CANAAN” - the banners read under a man’s face. The street was lined with banners that repeated the message every few yards.

 

“Who’s that guy on the banners, Jesse?” I asked, as we slowed down towards the traffic lights. 

“It’s Senator McAllister, the presidential candidate” Jesse said. “The elections are only a few months away”

I squinted to make out the senator’s features; under the yellow streetlight all that stood out was his chiselled jaw and a full head of hair that looked almost sculpted. He certainly looked like the kind of man who commanded respect. Maybe he was someone who had been ordering people around all his life. There had been people like him back at the Compound: men born with an innate disposition for leadership, men who could talk anyone into following their orders. That was the breed that the highest rank officers belonged to: the type of men who used my brother’s body as a toy to satisfy those very same compulsions that they expected us to eradicate. _I bet they’re all the same. Men with power._ _Men who use people._

 

The lights turned green and the senator’s face disappeared behind us, only to reappear again, faster and faster, until we turned into a smaller road with no banners, and he was gone.

 

 

\---------

 

“Here” Jesse said, putting a yellow notepad and a pencil in front of me as we sat at the kitchen table later that evening. 

“Write it all down” - he pointed at the paper. “What you remember of your family, I mean. It might be useful to the police, or even to us, if we have to do a bit of… research ourselves” he said, with a shrug. 

“Research? What kind of research?” Taylor said.

“Well, I don’t know yet, that depends on what the police dig out. But even if they find something in that old database…I don’t expect them to go any further than that. We’ll have to see what we can do with the information they find” he said.

“They won’t find anything” Zac muttered from behind the long strands of hair that hung loosely in front of his face.

“Why are you saying that, Zac? It’s almost like…you don’t want them to find anything” Taylor said, exasperated.

Zac shrugged, making his hair flutter, like the beaded curtain that we had on the front door of our trailer. _Here’s something else I remember_ , I thought.

Jesse pulled a chair close to Zac and sat down.

“Zac, when you get your papers…let’s even assume that we find out your father’s name…nothing’s going to change, you know? You can still stay here” he said, peering under the curtain of hair that was covering my little brother’s face.

 

_Of course. He’s worried that we’ll have to leave again. We’ll have to get a job at some point soon, get our own place. More change, more uncertainty._

 

“You know you can stay here for as long as you like” he continued.

Zac lifted his head slightly, pointing his nose in the direction of Jesse’s face.

“But we can’t stay here forever, right?”

“Well, forever is a big word” Jesse laughed “Do you really want to live with me until you’re 80 years old?” he said, giving me and Taylor an amused look. 

Taylor reached out his hand and tucked a thick strand of hair behind our little brother’s ear. 

“Please don’t worry about what’s going to happen, Zac. Ike and I are going to take care of things, like we always do. And you heard Jesse, he’s not going to ask us to move out tomorrow” Taylor said, stroking him on the back of the neck.

“But what happens if they say we have to go and live with him? I don’t even know him!” Zac burst out, exposing his face to Taylor, revealing toothmarks all over his bottom lip.

“No one’s going to make you go and live with anybody, Zac! That’s not how things work out here, mate. Even assuming that your father desperately wanted you to play happy families again, which I seriously doubt… you’re all over 18 now, you live with whoever you want and wherever you want” Jesse said, placing a hand on Zac’s shoulder. 

“What…so if you’re over 18 nobody can make you do anything here?” Zac asked, giving Jesse a cautious look.

“No, Zac, people make their own choices, out here”

“Well, no-one’s ever let _me_ make my own choices before” Zac mumbled.

 

It was at that point that I realised that my little brother’s fears were nothing but the mirror of his life experiences - of having been at the mercy of other people’s decisions. At the Compound we’d never had much choice on how we were supposed to lead our lives,the constant threat of RTC always looming over us. We were recruited into our jobs according to criteria established by the CoR’s upper echelons. I’d struggled with basic literacy and as a result, I had found myself being steered towards technical duties - carpentry, electrical work, building -  all occupations which I was admittedly quite good at, but that in a different life might not have been my first choice. But I’d had it easy, compared to Taylor and Zac; I obviously wasn’t considered good looking enough to entertain the Officers,  while my brothers’ pretty faces had landed them straight into the open arms of the Club House. From there to the Children’s Block, to the Detox Center, Zac had been moved around by other people - even if at least on one occasion it had been for his own good. And when we snuck him out of his cell and smuggled him out of the Compound in the back of a truck, once again it had been somebody else’s choice, not his. 

It wasn’t such a big leap of the imagination to think like Zac and assume that our father could be yet another authority figure with the power of taking decisions on our behalf.

 

“How about you make a very important choice now?” Jesse winked at us.

“What is it?” Zac asked, instantly suspicious.

“I’ll let you choose what we have for dinner” Jesse said, leaning back on his chair. 

_This guy really knows how to handle my little brother’s moods_ , I thought, watching Jesse in awe.

“You’re just trying to distract me with food again! I’m not …dumb, you know?” Zac snapped, crossing his arms in front of him. 

“I never said you were, mate. But that’s ok, I’ll decide then. I just thought you might like the choices I had in mind” Jesse said, making a big show of getting up from his chair.

“Wait”

Jesse stifled a laugh.

“What were the choices?”

 

\-----

 

After my little brother had chosen mac & cheese over spaghetti and meatballs, Jesse put him in charge of mixing the various ingredients into a bowl. _That’s a very risky strategy_ , I thought, grateful all the same that he had found a way to make Zac feel useful. 

 

I returned my eyes to the yellow notepad in front of me. I picked up the pencil and began to roll it between my index finger and thumb.

“Ike?” Taylor said, clasping my fingers and the pencil into his. “Do you want me to help?”

 

I looked sheepishly at my brother. He knew that I found writing difficult; he’d helped me many, many times before when I struggled with the written parts of our Processing training. But I still felt self-conscious for not being able to do something so basic; we had attended the same mixed-age lessons at the Teaching Block, but with drastically different results. Maybe because Taylor was only five years old, he had been able to adapt to the disjointed, haphazard teaching method of the Flock. By age eight, I’d had a string of so-called teachers at the various communal houses where we had lived with our mother: adults who would attempt to teach the household’s children how to read and write, and little more. It was chaotic and inconsistent, and we moved so many houses that, in all fairness, I never stood a chance. Eventually - and with Taylor’s patient help - I learned to read and discovered I was very good at figures; but my writing skills never quite progressed beyond a few basic words and whatever I had managed to memorise to pass the tests. 

 

“Come on” Taylor said, scooting his chair closer to mine. “You do the thinking, I’ll do the writing”.

_Think, think. What else do I remember._ I closed my eyes in an effort to squeeze out whatever tiny fragments still lingered in the haze of my childhood memories; and a strange loneliness came over me, because for once I couldn’t rely on my brothers. What if I remembered wrong? What if it wasn’t enough?

_Think._

_My mother coming home with a bundle wrapped in a blue knitted woolly blanket._

Was it Taylor? There was an older woman in the trailer with me - maybe my mother had left me with her. I couldn’t picture our father anywhere near the scene. But I could see his face - or what was etched in my mind as his face -  in a similar picture from a couple of years later. They took us to a neighbour then, I was sure - their trailer smelt of fried food and stale cigarettes. Our father was with her when they left, although she still came back on her own, with another tiny bundle wrapped in the same tiny blanket. And I remembered worrying, for a very long time afterwards, that every time she’d leave the trailer she would come back with another baby, and that we’d soon run out of space. 

But we moved soon after Zac was born anyway. We moved to big houses where strangely we were even more cramped and where the four of us slept in one room. That was probably the reason why our mother began to spend more and more time in the communal lounge with the other adults. 

 

“What can you remember of him?” Taylor asked, steering my thoughts back to our father.

“I’m…really not sure. Brown hair. Maybe he had brown eyes, too? I can’t remember, Tay” I said. “This is really pointless”

“No, it’s not. Look, going by what you said, we’re pretty sure that he never lived with us” Taylor said, pointing at his neatly-written notes on the yellow pad. “So, most likely, they weren’t married. So we probably have our mother’s last name, right, Jesse?” 

“Everything points to that. I can’t see why they would have lived apart if they’d been married” Jesse said, wiping his hands on a tea towel.

“Are you sure you can’t remember his last name? Did mom never mention that?” Taylor said.

I shook my head. 

“I’m not even sure about his first name…I don’t know, it could have been Charlie but maybe it’s just my mind making something up” 

“Let’s put Charlie down as a possibility then” Taylor said, scribbling on the notepad. “What else?”

“Every time he left, mom would cry”

_That’s something I remember very, very well._

“And then every time he came round, he brought us presents. I think that’s why I remember him visiting. I’m sure he brought something every time. Like candy. Mom never bought sweet stuff.”

“So maybe he had money” Jesse suggested behind us.

_Money?_ , Taylor carefully wrote, going over the question mark with his pencil several times.

“He probably had more money than we did” I said.

“Ike…were we… _poor_?” Taylor asked, lowering his voice.

“No, I don’t think we were poor as such…we weren’t rich, but we never went hungry…or anything like that. Mom didn’t want us to watch television so we didn’t have a set in the trailer. And for a while we didn’t eat meat either, but that changed when we moved to the Compound”. 

“Sounds like your mum was a bit of a hippie” Jesse said.

“What’s a hippie?” Zac asked, as he felt his way back to the chair.

“A hippie is…someone who … cooks with brown rice and lentils a lot, and goes on about peace and love” Jesse, with a little laugh. 

We all looked at him quizzically. 

“Hippies had a different lifestyle. Especially years ago. Now with people having to travel from state to state to find work, there seem to be fewer of them around” he explained. “It sounds like your mum was in that kind of lifestyle, especially when she moved you all to a commune. I’m also willing to bet that she had really long hair and didn’t believe in the use of deodorant, either” he said.

“She did have very long hair, she still does, as far as I know” I said. I wasn’t sure about the deodorant though.

“What happened to your mother anyway? You never told me” Jesse asked casually as he put plates and cutlery in front of us. 

 

I could tell that he had wanted to ask that question for a while. Jesse was always so careful about not making us feel uncomfortable, especially since he’d found out about …us three. I knew he and Taylor talked a lot more, but it was always in private - probably to avoid upsetting Zac. Or maybe he just liked Taylor better. Everybody liked Taylor better.

 

“She got married” Zac broke the awkward silence. He didn’t seem to want expand on his answer, so I volunteered.  

“She married an officer and went to live with him. And then we saw her less and less, because it’s not…the done thing to keep in touch with your old family, even if they are members themselves”

“She couldn’t wait to ditch us” Zac said.

“It wasn’t like that, Zac” Taylor said. “You know it was complicated”

“She never came to see me once after I…” he said, his voice about to crack.

“Maybe she couldn’t, you know how things worked there” Taylor said. 

_Why are you defending her? She didn’t even try. Her son got sick and went blind and she never once visited him._ _Zac’s absolutely right_. 

 

But Taylor had always looked for excuses for our mother’s behaviour: that she was following orders, that maybe it was too painful for her to see Zac in that state. That her new husband was threatening her to send us to RTC if she tried to make contact. I wasn’t entirely convinced. I’d always had the feeling that our mother considered us the source of all her problems; that her love for us seemed almost forced, mechanical. Acquired through years of training and practice. She took care of us, fed us, clothed us and never once hit us, but when she left, that was that. I never really missed her. By then, she had already begun her disconnection from us anyway, and as a result, Taylor and I had been gradually taking on what would soon become our permanent roles: those of surrogate parents to our little brother. And all in all, I thought we did a pretty good job at that, too.

 

The oven timer pinged, interrupting our exercise.

“Saved by the bell” Jesse said. “Who’s hungry?”

 

\------

 

It was two days later when we finally heard back from the police. The phone rang, displaying Jesse’s cellphone number on the handset’s screen. We were under strict instructions from Jesse to always answer the phone if he called - otherwise we were free to ignore it and let the answering machine pick up. I answered.

“I’ve just heard back from Weathers” he said.

I held my breath. 

“They think they’ve found you”.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	13. Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> POV: Taylor  
> Chapter Word Count: 7,501
> 
> Check out the 'Flock for Dummies' guide - download it here: http://www.mediafire.com/view/u8df21cj4ai791d/The_Flock_For_Dummies.pdf

Only a few days after our initial trip to the police station we were waiting outside Detective Weathers’ office once again to find out who we were. My heart was pounding: _this is it_ , I thought. I knew that my brothers felt the same - Isaac had been to the bathroom several times before leaving the house, and Zac had gone completely quiet, as if he had resigned himself to the fact that whatever news we were about to receive could only be bad ones. I looked at the big clock that hung on the wall opposite. Maybe it was considered acceptable to be late here; but in the Compound, timekeeping was one of the most basic rules and I’d heard of people begin sent to RTC after turning up to a processing session a couple of minutes’ late.  _I guess a lot of things are different, here._

“He’s going to be here soon, Taylor” Jesse said, looking up from his phone. 

He was constantly checking it and typing things into a keyboard that had no actual keys. I’d asked him once who he was always writing to, and he’d said he was posting on a social network, and that his friends in Australia could see the photos he had just taken. It sounded incredibly complicated. 

“It’s just nerve-racking, that’s all. I just want to get it over and done with.”

“Me too. Do you think they’d let me use the bathroom here?” Isaac asked.

“Sure but can it wait? Weathers is here” Jesse said, standing up. 

“I’m sorry to have kept you waiting gentlemen” Weathers said as he approached. “Come on in”

“So, Daniels worked his magic and did come up with something this time. I have to tell you straight away that it’s not much, though” Weathers said, making a point of looking at each of us in the eye in turn, even Zac. “I am not entirely convinced that the information we have is…reliable” he added.

My mouth was too dry to speak so I turned to Isaac. 

“Okay, let’s hear it then” he said, reaching out to put a hand on Zac’s arm. 

“Well, Daniels said that at first he drew a blank - when he entered your names” he said, vaguely waving his finger at Isaac and me. “But when he searched for your brother by name and D.O.B. he got a result.”

Weathers took the sheet of paper that was in front of him, turned it upside down and pushed it towards us. 

 _“Zachary Walker Anderson”_ I read out loud.

“Walker? What is that? Is that our father’s name?” Zac said.

“Walker is actually your middle name” Weathers replied “As soon as Daniels was able to access your records, he found your mother and your brothers” - Weathers glanced at us two again. “And this is whether it gets interesting. The reason why we couldn’t locate your records anywhere is because your names - the names you two go by - are actually your middle names. Look at this” he said, handing us each a sheet of paper.

I looked down at mine.

“ _Jordan Taylor Anderson_ ”

“ _Clarke Isaac Anderson_ ” Isaac said in little more than a whisper.

“I was wondering why you two didn’t have biblical names. Turns out that you do, after all” Jesse said, sounding quite satisfied with himself.

 _Biblical names?_ I wasn’t sure what Jesse meant by that, but I figured that now wasn’t the time to ask, as Weathers was clearly waiting to carry on.

“As for your father…” he resumed talking once we were quiet again “This is where I must admit I am not convinced. Look half way down the page, under the family notes of your records”

We looked down at our printouts again. 

I read it aloud.

_Mother: Olivia Anderson_

_Father: Charlie Smith_

I picked up Zac’s page - it said the same.

“I don’t’ understand” I said.

“Charlie _Smith_?” Jesse said. “Smith is one of the most common family names in any English-speaking country”

“But why can’t that be his name?” Isaac said.

“Well, I can’t be certain, but it sounds like a made-up name to me.  Why were you given your mother’s family name if he appeared on your birth certificates? Why not just calling you Clarke, Jordan and Zachary Smith? I don’t know…something about it doesn’t ring true, but it’s just a hunch. I could be wrong”.

“Did Daniels searched for a Charles Smith?” Jesse said.

“Of course. Normally, when you access someone’s records, you just need to click on the name of any family members appearing on the same record and it takes you to their files. But there was nothing linked to the name of Charlie Smith - it was just a dummy record. Then Daniels searched separately, and predictably, there were thousands of hits. But if they’re not linked to your names, they’re no use to us.”

We sat in silence for a few seconds, trying to understand what Weathers was telling us. It all sounded so incomprehensible - all this talk of databases, records, files and a name that was unlikely to be our own. _Maybe Zac was right all the way along. Maybe this is a complete waste of time._

“Something else doesn’t add up here” Weathers said, interrupting the silence.  “Isaac and Taylor’s records appear to have been last modified on the date of Zac’s birthday. Which makes me think that until then, there was no mention of a Charlie Smith in their files. Then Zac was born and suddenly a father appears on your records, too”.

“Would it have been that easy? I didn’t think you could just ask a hospital clerk to go back into a child’s record and ask to be added as their father?” Jesse asked.

“Well, exactly. And there’s something else” Weathers paused. “We could only access the public entry of your files. As soon as Daniels requested the full records, he got an ‘Access Denied’ message. We’re the police - we have full clearance to access any Census records. It just doesn’t make sense.’

“So…we’re stuck again?” I said, exasperated.

“Maybe not yet - the good news is that your records indicate that DNA samples were taken from you and from both your parents. Pre-CANAAN samples used to be collected for identification purposes, such as after an accident. But they were rarely analyzed, because of cost and time. After CANAAN was formed, every citizen would have had to give a DNA sample for the new ID documents; so...”

“…if their father’s DNA sample is sitting in an archive somewhere, and we get it analysed, we can cross-match it with the current DNA database because if he’s alive, he will be registered, right?” Jesse rushed in to say.

“Correct. You should have been a cop, not a doctor. Clearly you don’t need me here” Weathers said, sternly.

“Sorry Jay…I didn’t mean to interrupt you” Jesse said.

“Just kidding, _my-te_ ” Weathers chuckled. “But seriously, you’re going to need your Sherlock Holmes skills if you want to find this guy. Have you ever been to San Diego?”

 

\------

 

Before we left the police station, Weathers asked us to fill in some forms and have our photos taken for our new identification papers. I couldn’t believe that our presence in an obsolete database was a better proof of our existence than being there in the flesh.

“At least we’re not considered ‘displaced’ people anymore” I said as we drove back to Jesse’s place. 

“It’s definitely a start” Isaac said from the back of the car.

“So why don’t we just ….leave it at that. Who cares if that guy is our father or not. Why do we have to keep looking?”

“We’ve been through this before, Zac” Isaac sighed. 

I looked in the rearview mirror. My brothers were holding hands, their fingers tightly entwined together. Now that Isaac’s feelings towards our brother were out in the open, they seemed closer than ever before. I wasn’t jealous; if anything, I felt as if a big safety net had just appeared under me, giving me the assurance that whatever happened to me, Isaac would be there for Zac. I’d always known that, of course, but now it was oddly comforting to think that there would always be a pair of arms to hold him; that he’d always find some warmth beside him before falling asleep at night. After that night out with Dylan I’d done nothing but worry about what could have happened if I hadn’t made it back, and now Isaac had taken some of that anguish away. Now I knew that Zac would never be alone.

“Zac, if you were only three when you left San Diego, you won’t remember the ocean, right?” Jesse’s voice snapped me out of my thoughts.

“No… I don’t know if I’ve been there. Have I?” Zac turned to my older brother, questioningly.

“Maybe…I think we went to the beach with you a couple of times”

“I vaguely remember” I said.

_The disconcerting feeling of the sand under my feet._

“If we go to San Diego you can see the ocean” Jesse said.

“I’m not gonna see anything, _am I_ ” Zac snapped. 

“Zac, don’t be like that” Isaac said. 

“You won’t need to see it, Zac. Once you’re near the ocean, you’ll know that it’s there. The smell of sea water is like nothing else in the world. And you’ll hear the waves….and if it’s not too cold we could even take a dip in the sea.” Jesse studied my baby brother’s reaction in the mirror. 

“Hmmm.” 

“So, what do you say, Zac?” Jesse asked my brother. “Fancy taking a road trip?”

“To the ocean?” 

I could detect a shade of interest in my brother’s voice. 

“Yeah, why not?” Jesse said, glancing at the mirror occasionally. “We could stop at a few places along the way, then when we get to San Diego we can do what we need to do and then have a couple of days by the ocean. I’ll need to check with the hospital but I can take a few days’ vacation in the new year. It would be nice to get away from here - all I’ve done in the last year is work” he sighed.

“But…will you lose pay?” I asked. Jesse had already done so much for us that I couldn’t expect him to lose money to take us on a trip.

“No, I have paid vacation, of course”

“They pay you when you’re not at work?” 

Jesse glanced at me, laughing. 

“What?” I asked, slightly offended. 

_Is he laughing at me?_

“Nothing, it’s just…” he hesitated, smiling as he kept his eyes on the road in front of us.

“It’s just what?” I insisted.

“It’s just that your reactions to things I take for granted always surprise me. You’ve been through more crap than anyone else I’ve ever known, and yet you seem so innocent sometimes. It’s kind of sweet” 

“Oh…” 

I felt the skin on my face instantly flush, but I wasn’t sure why. I thought that years of working at the Club House had made me immune to embarrassment, but Jesse had a way of piercing through all my protective layers, stripping away the mask I’d learnt to wear over the years to appear untouchable, un-shockable. For a moment, I was lost for words.

“I…don’t know. We must seem really stupid to you. I mean, we don’t know anything. It’s just so…hard sometimes” I mumbled eventually, turning my head to the car window to hide the redness on my cheeks.

“It won’t be like that forever. I felt like that too when I first arrived here, you know? Everything was different…people didn’t understand my accent…well some people still don’t” he said, raising his eyebrow in pretend disbelief.

“But you like it here now, right?” I asked.

“Well….it’s…okay” His face darkened for a moment. “I miss a few things, like…the sea. That’s why I thought it might be nice to head down for the coast, take some time out, get out of the City for a couple of days…smell the ocean again…”

“Maybe we should go then.To the ocean. If we have to go there anyway” Zac said from the back of the car, in the tone of someone who had made a final decision on behalf of everybody else. 

“It didn’t take long to convince you” Jesse teased him.

“I never said I didn’t want to go. I just don’t care about finding … _him._ But I’d like to hear the waves. Out here everything is just so _noisy_ ”

It was true. The City was so chaotic and loud compared to the organised, controlled life at the Compound. I knew that Zac barely tolerated it, his discomfort bordering on irritation on the rare occasions when we left Jesse’s place.  Strangely, the noise of the City didn’t bother me that much; everything was already so big and scary that, in a way, it was almost predictable, as if the bad stuff was already all out in the open and you just _expected it_. I had no idea of what San Diego would be like - I couldn’t remember anything apart from a few faded memories which could well be just borrowed from Isaac’s. The whole idea of going away was unsettling; I wanted to go and see the ocean too, but the thought of getting back on the road and leaving the safety of the apartment made me nervous. 

I _wonder if Isaac feels the same. He’s the only one who remembers._

Just as I resolved to ask Isaac later, Jesse slowed the car down and we turned into our street. I was beginning to recognise the now increasingly familiar surroundings, and I caught myself thinking of the apartment as _home._ It would not be easy to pack our bags and travel again.

 

\------

 

I watched through the window how the grey of the street outside gradually disappeared under a thickening layer of snow. 

I sighed.

 _I’d give anything for Zac to see this_.

It snowed once or twice where we came from, and after the initial excitement I remembered the disappointment at what was a fleeting flurry of hopeless, wet flakes that never stood a chance to build up to anything remotely impressive. This was the real thing - something that I never thought I’d see, but I couldn’t share the experience with the person I loved the most. 

“Wow…” 

Isaac had crept up behind me. He rested his chin over my shoulder and looked outside.

“It’s a shame that -” 

“I know” I cut him short. I didn’t want Zac to overhear us talking about what he was missing out on.

“It’s ok, Tay, he can’t hear us. He’s in bed”

“Again? We’ve only just got up” 

“I know. I looked away for five minutes and he’d snuck back under the covers” he chuckled. “He can’t seem to ever get enough sleep at the moment”

That was an understatement. Since our escape, and especially now that we had the luxury of a soft, warm bed, all that Zac seemed to want to do was sleep. I knew it wasn’t normal behaviour from him, even allowing for the changes he had gone through after losing his sight. Since then, his moods had become more unpredictable, and he had gradually become quiet and withdrawn. But now it was as if he had decided to shut down completely, choosing to nap through most of the day, only to go sleep again when Isaac and I were ready to join him for the night. He slept in bed, on the couch, in the back of the car if we went out anywhere with Jesse. He slept sitting on the living room rug with his head resting against my knees as I sat down with a book.

That was not the brother Isaac and I had struggled to tame over the years, a boy with boundless energy and an innate curiosity for life and the world around him - even if that world was only limited to a few hundred acres of land enclosed by a concrete wall.

_Where’s my brother? I don’t’ know him anymore._

“You know, Tay, he doesn’t need to see it” Isaac said after a pause. “We could go out to that park before the road block. Even just walking there he’ll feel it…under his feet…and it’s still falling anyway. It’s something, right?”

He put his hand on my shoulder so that I would turn to face him.  For once, my brother’s face was relaxed, that mask of impassibility that he had worn for years, now gone. I had forgotten how my brother could, with one single smile, convey a split second of true happiness.

“Come on, what do you say?” he said. There was a tinge of excitement in his voice that was very unlike him. 

_My big brother wants to go and see the snow._

“Alright…although…should we tell Jesse that we’re going out? Just in case something happens. I don’t really like the idea of going out without him knowing. You know, in case…anything happens…” I said, nervously.

“I know” my brother said, no longer smiling. “But nothing’s going to happen, alright?” He put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed it gently. “Nothing’s going to happen” he repeated. “Ok?”

“Ok. I’ll ring Jesse” 

“I’ll try and get our brother out of bed then. Wish me luck” Isaac said, releasing the grip. 

A few minutes later, we were outside.

“It’s freezing” - Zac muttered under his breath, clinging to my arm more tightly than usual as we took our first tentative steps on the snow-covered sidewalk.  

“You’ll warm up in a minute. Just watch your step, it’s really slippery” Isaac said, grabbing hold of our baby brother’s other arm. 

A narrow path had formed where the snow had been trodden on and had been compacted into a thicker, harder layer that was rapidly turning into ice. 

“Let’s try to walk where the snow is soft. The last thing I need is to trip and break any more bones” I said. My broken rib hadn’t yet healed completely, adding to an overall sense of vulnerability that I just couldn’t shake off. 

 _If anything happened, I wouldn’t be much use, right now._ I cast an anxious look at my older brother, but he was looking down to his feet, his forehead knotted into a frown of concentration. I relaxed a little at the sight of my brothers all intent on negotiating the snowy ground like toddlers taking their first steps. _It’s going to be ok._

We walked slowly on, with only the muffled sound of our feet on the soft snow interrupting the silence of the semi-deserted street. 

“It’s so ….quiet” Zac said after a while.

“Well, the snow probably acts as sound insulation” Isaac said.

“But why is nobody around?” 

“People are probably at work now, Zac. And Jesse said this is a residential area so people can’t get past the barricades unless they live here” I added, looking around us. 

The only other discernible noise came from distant footsteps behind us - another passerby, probably. As we stopped to cross the road, I glanced behind us - a figure wrapped in a thick black coat walking a few feet behind us, and nobody else. Maybe walking around in the snow wasn’t the thing to do; but I was beginning to enjoy the cold, crisp air and the peculiar smell of the frozen crystals of water. 

“There’s the park” Isaac said as we turned into a side street that looked almost identical to all the others. 

What until the day before was a green area scattered with trees and wrought iron benches, was now an indistinct patch of white. A woman walked her dog alongside the clear path that lead into the grounds, smiling as she walked past, her eyes betraying some curiosity at the sight of Zac holding on to my arm. Once she was well behind us, Isaac abruptly halted.

“Come on now, let’s step into the snow. It’s really deep here” he said, tugging at our baby brother’s arm. 

“We’ll get wet” I objected, although I was tempted to just forget about being sensible for once.

“We’ll get changed when we get home” Isaac insisted. “Come on, I know Zac wants to do it”

We followed him into the foot-deep snow, raising our knees into exaggerated steps, until we were a good distance away from the main path. All around us, the thick white layer was completely untouched. 

“This is so weird…” Zac said almost to himself, pointing his nose at the sky. He shut his eyes, letting the snowflakes fall gently on his closed lids. He stood like that for a few seconds, until a thin powdery layer had laid itself all over his skin, covering his long eyelashes and the tip of his nose. 

_Isaac was right. This was a good idea. Zac needed this. We all did._

“Zac, try picking some up” Isaac said, doing the same. 

I watched my younger brother blink repeatedly to free his eyes from the light dusting, and gingerly bending forward, he scooped a handful of snow from the ground, shuddering as the cold crystals soaked through the fibres of his woolly gloves. 

“Woah!”

“Feels strange, uh?” Isaac said, passing the handful of snow from one hand to another. 

“Is it safe to eat?” Without waiting for an answer, Zac proceeded to take a tentative bite at the small mound in his hand.

“It tastes of …cold water” he said. He bit another chunk out of the freezing lump.

“Of course it does” Isaac said, grinning. “What did you expect snow to taste like? 

“I don’t know….” Zac said, squeezing the snow into his hand until it became a small, hard ball. He opened the palm of his hand and dropped it to the ground, then picked up a fresh scoop. 

“Ike?” he said.

“What?”

Before he knew it, Isaac had been hit in the face by Zac’s snowball. He stared in disbelief at our baby brother, who was standing there with a big grin on his face.

“I got you, didn’t I?” he said.

“How….yes! How did you aim so well?” Isaac said, dusting the snow off his face and neck.

“Well… I can sort of see your shape, then I got you to say something so I was sure of where to aim” 

“You fell for it, Ike” I said, amused at Zac’s surprise attack.

“I did…!” Isaac said, laughing incredulously. Then he glanced at me and put his index finger in front of his lips. Quietly, he picked up another handful of snow and made it into a ball. A couple of seconds later, I was watching my brothers having a snowball fight, laughing hard, like they’d never laughed before. 

Even when we were children, there had been very little time for fun in between school and the CoR training that was passed as play, but which was to all effects a form of early years indoctrination. In the Flock, children’s natural exuberance was barely tolerated, if not actively suppressed. It was something that a child was encouraged to grow out of as soon as possible, so that by early adolescence he would be ready for processing training, and set on the lifelong path towards the complete shedding of the human essence. 

They hadn’t quite managed to crush Zac’s spirit though, and he had thrived in his job at the Children’s Block, disregarding the strict methods and rules that staff were expected to adhere to; demanding that the children be quiet at all times, discouraging even the most innocent of physical contact, such as a hug, or a kiss on a bruised elbow or knee. 

Zac happily ignored all of that, and once home, he would tell us of his little acts of rebellion, without quite realising that that was what they were: open gestures of defiance of CoR rules, punishable, in the worst case, by RTC. To Zac,  they were nothing more than soothing a crying child, or making up a game to liven up the tedium of formal lessons. That was my brother. And now I watched him as he aimed snowball after snowball at Isaac with incredible accuracy and I longed to have him back, back the way he used to be, full of life, attention-seeking and often demanding, but undeniably _alive._

“Ouch!”

A snowball hit me in the face.

“Gotcha!” - Zac was standing a few steps away from me, laughing. His eyes were drawing patterns around me, as if he was framing me inside his own imaginary target.

 _How did he do that_?

“Careful Zac, I don’t want you to hit him in the chest” Isaac yelled.

“Sorry Tay” Zac said, beginning to walk over towards me in uncertain steps. Instantly, Isaac was by his side and had grabbed him by the arm, guiding him towards me. 

“I didn’t hurt you, did I?” he said, reaching out for my arm, then feeling his way to the top of my shoulder with his hand. 

“No, it’s ok Zac. I’m sorry I can’t join in too, but I can’t really bend down to pick up the snow. You two go ahead though”

“Wait”…Zac picked up a fresh scoop and placed it in my hand. “That’s it. You’ve got ammunition now”

 

\----

 

We threw snowballs at each other until we were all too cold and wet to carry on. The park had remained almost deserted, save for the occasional dog walker - dogs clearly being one of the few reasons that would make Outsiders go out in the cold. We had trampled all over the biggest patch of snow, and the park had lost its initial prettiness now that it was covered in crater-like footprints dotted around the grounds in a haphazard pattern. 

“We should head back”

“Yeah, I guess we should” Isaac said. 

“Ok….but maybe we can come back tomorrow, right?” Zac said, a tinge of hope in his voice.

“Of course we can. We can come back every day until it melts” I said, brushing some snow from our baby brother’s face. I was chilled to the bone, but it had been worth it. Seeing my brothers laugh and have fun had definitely been worth it.

We set out back in the direction of the apartment. The roads were still quiet - if anything, quieter than they had been only little more than an hour earlier. The snow had kept on falling and the sidewalks were almost completely covered by a fresh layer again, and even the sound of our steps was now barely audible, muffled by the soft snow that crunched under our feet. Instinctively, I  picked up my pace, until the tugging of Zac’s hand on my arm forced me to slow down again. Now I just I wanted to get home, the disorienting calm of all that white unsettling me. It wasn’t until we were almost home that I heard some other signs of life: a siren wailing in the distance; a car engine starting from further down the street, and someone else’s steps behind us. I turned to look behind me, startled at the unexpected noise, and noticed the man in the thick black coat whom we had seen earlier. I nodded at him in recognition, but he looked away. _I have still a lot to learn about the ways of the Outsiders_ , I thought, making a mental note to ask Jesse if saying hello to complete strangers was such a strange thing to do. 

The man’s steps hurried behind us, and in a few seconds he had overtaken us and gone his own way. 

\-----

Once back inside, we quickly shed our wet, partly frozen clothes as we tried to warm up again. We had been outside a lot longer than we had initially planned, and nothing had prepared us for the piercing, enduring chill of snow.

Our idea of winter - of cold, dry nights at the Compound - couldn’t be more distant from the reality of December in the City. This would take some getting used to.

“I’ll make some coffee - that will warm us up” I said, rubbing my hands together.

I was getting a taste for coffee, and any excuse was good to turn on the machine and watch the dark liquid percolate and slowly drip-drip down into the pot. I loved the feeling of pouring it and knowing that if I wanted some more, there was still plenty left. It was very strange to know that we could just….help ourselves. 

“Maybe I’ll run a bath?” Isaac suggested as he changed back into the jeans and long sleeve shirt he had been wearing before going out.  “Do you fancy a bath, buddy?” he asked Zac. 

It was safe for Zac to soak in the bath now, the wounds on his wrists and around his ankles having almost completely healed.  It was hard not to fuss over him, but he was well enough now to start taking care of himself.  There were plenty of things he could do without our help.

We had taken certain everyday tasks for granted until Zac got sick; being able to wash your hair, brush your teeth, have a shave. Once our brother’s sight had gone, so had his concept of personal hygiene, and we had found ourselves battling daily against our brother’s aversion to showering, once again thrown into the roles of reluctant parents. He’d give in, eventually, and allow us to direct him to the waiting tub or toothbrush, and even then, would only just about suffer our intrusions for long enough so that he could then be left alone until the following day. Over time, reluctance morphed into apathy, and with that, the assumption that we would take care of things for him. In other words, our brother just _quit_. He began to rely on us for everything, letting us take control of his daily routine while he withdrew deeper and deeper into himself. Until he began to _disappear_ into a shell that neither I nor Isaac could crack. A shell that, however, the Flock, _our own people,_ had every intention to not only crack, but crush to dust.

I flicked the ‘On’ switch under the coffee machine, and went to the bathroom; Isaac had rolled up his sleeve over his elbow and was dipping his wrist in the water, checking the temperature.  

“Ready?” he said to Zac.

I watched my baby brother gingerly step into the tub, holding on to Isaac’s shoulder for support. I was relieved to see that he had gained a little weight and no longer looked all skin and bones, the way I’d found him only a few weeks before. He was still too skinny for his naturally stocky frame, but after a few weeks eating three meals a day, a soft layer of fat was now covering his stomach, which looked oddly mismatched to my brother’s still protruding ribs. But he was undoubtedly getting better.

“Can I have some music?” our brother asked once he had lowered himself in the water. 

Since hearing Jesse play a couple of weeks before, and whenever he wasn’t sleeping, Zac now listened to music via a small device that somehow contained hours and hours of music of all types. Jesse had showed us how to use it, and it never ceased to amaze me to hear the notes materialise out of nowhere via tiny little boxes that were hidden in every room of the apartment. The music seemed to soothe our brother, possibly filling the void left by his missing sense.  I hoped so. I couldn’t imagine a world only inhabited by shadows and barely distinguishable shapes: every time I did, something inside me ached so badly that I would have to push that thought away. It hurt too much to try _not to see_ the world through my brother’s eyes and every time I felt like a coward, unworthy of him, incapable of shouldering at least part of his burden, unable to at least pretend to understand. And every time I felt as if I’d failed him a little.

I let Isaac take care of the music while I headed back into the kitchen, where the coffee was now ready. I filled two mugs almost to the brim and placed them on the kitchen table, waiting for my drink to cool down before attempting the first sip. 

“I’m going to need that” Isaac said, eyeing the steaming mug as he walked into the kitchen. He pulled the chair opposite me and sat down. He wrapped his hands around the mug to warm them up.

“I’m worried about him” I said after a while.  

“I know” Isaac lowered his eyes. “Me too”

“Even compared to before…he’s got worse. He never used to be so clingy, Ike. Even…with me” I said.

After all, Zac and I had always been close, closer than he and Isaac ever were, but even that was nothing compared to now. I couldn’t leave the room without Zac following me; the only exception was now his bath time, where we could leave him on his own for a while, provided that the music was on and the door was open so that he could still hear us talk.

“We have to be patient, Tay. He’s been through a lot”

“But we don’t know what happened in there. He won’t talk about it. Did he tell you anything back at the camp, when I wasn’t there?”

“No, nothing. I tried to ask him a couple of times, as subtly as I could but… he just clammed up”

“What do you…think they did to him? We need to find out, Ike, what if he needs our help - we can’t just sit here and”- 

“Tay” - my brother put his hand over mine as he cut me off. “He will talk to us, when he’s ready. He knows we’re there for him.”

“But” -

“Tay, we can’t force him. We just have to wait and see. That’s what Jesse said too, and he’s a doctor - he knows how to deal with this kind of things” Isaac said, in that big brother reassuring tone that he had used since we were children. Only this time it wasn’t working.

“It’s just that…even Layne was vague when I asked him what kind of treatments they used there. I got the impression that he didn’t want to tell me, but then when it came to help us, he immediately said yes. As if …he wanted us to get Zac out of there, too”

That thought had been haunting me for weeks. What did Layne know, why was he so eager to risk RTC - and access to his daughter - for us? For Zac? 

_What is it that he wouldn’t tell me?_

“You’ve got to stop torturing yourself over this Tay, or you’ll drive yourself crazy. And I need at least one completely sane brother” Isaac said, sounding suddenly tired.

“You’re..right, I’m sorry” I sighed. The last thing I wanted to was to give Isaac more reasons to worry, especially as for once he was the one best coping with the situation.  “I’m sure he’ll talk to us when he wants to”

I took another sip of coffee. I was beginning to think that it did something to me. I couldn't be enjoying that strange, bitter taste so much; no, it was more the way I felt while I drank it, and the effect that persisted afterwards; a steady, warm buzz which made me feel more awake, more focused.

 _“Taaay? Iiiiiike? I’m done here”  -_ Zac’s voice came from the bathroom.

“I’d better go and get him before he causes any damage” Isaac laughed, getting up from his chair. “Wanna go next?”

Despite Jesse’s trying to convince us that there was plenty of water for all three of us, we still couldn’t get used to the idea of wasting all that hot water after using it, and we took turns after Zac’s bath, only topping up the tub with a little more hot water. Of course, we always let Zac go first.

“You go. You’ll be soaked by the time you get Zac out anyway” 

“True” my brother chuckled as he left the room, not before he’d given my shoulder a little squeeze. 

_Isaac is right._

_It’s all going to be okay._

 

_\--------_

 

It carried on snowing, one white day turning into the next until it almost felt as if we’d never known anything else but this strange, still, frozen world. We went to the park and had snow fights, stopping only when we were too cold to carry on. We saw the man in the thick black coat walk on the opposite side of the sidewalk and back, oddly synchronised to our routine. It was as if we were stuck on some kind of strange loop in which everything stayed the same, immobile and unchanged, like the heavy white sky that permanently glowed, unearthly and dream-like, with a coppery tinge, the messenger, as we’d quickly come to learn, of more snow to come.

 _“It’s going to be a white one”_ Jesse had said. _“A white what?”_ I’d asked. _“A white Christmas”_ he’d replied. He said that where he was from it never snowed. That afternoon he left the apartment with Isaac and they came back carrying a tree - a real, living fir tree. We decorated it with gold and red shiny baubles and wrapped the branches in strings of tiny lights, and when Jesse turned a switch on, the lights blinked intermittently and their reflections on the baubles made everything sparkle. 

I had never seen Isaac so happy.

“If you want to have a proper Christmas, you’ll have to take charge of all the preparation, because I’m going to be working” Jesse told us that evening. “The shifts were decided months ago and I’d put my name down to work as I didn’t think I’d be spending it with anyone. I did the same last year. Better to be celebrating in the hospital with the nurses than all on my own” he said.

“Do you not have any friends?” I asked. It suddenly struck me how Jesse was always either at work or with us. 

“I do, but…Christmas is a family occasion and people tend to spend it with their families. I can smell a sympathy invite a mile off, so I’d always rather be working. Only this year I wish I wasn’t” - he shrugged.

 _So do I,_ I thought. I liked it when Jesse was around. Things seemed better, easier. _Brighter_. 

“Will you be working all day?” I asked.

“Twelve hour shift, I’ll be back by 8. So we can still eat together”

“I’ll cook” I said, eagerly. “Just say what we’re supposed to eat and I’ll make it” - This was my chance to actually be doing something for Jesse. All of a sudden, I was excited about Christmas too.

“I’ll find some recipes on the internet. And you guys will have to wait for me to open the presents” he said.

“Presents?” Zac piped up. “Like on our birthdays?”

“Just like that, yes. Only we put them under the tree on Christmas Eve. Like Isaac remembers from when you were children. I’ve got all your presents already but I’ve hidden them in my room. No snooping, alright?” - he frowned, trying to look stern.

 _Presents_. What could we get _him? -_ we had no money of our own and besides, he seemed to have _everything._ Clothes, books, _things._ Thing that we didn’t even know existed until recently. Things that required electricity, or batteries, things that worked with no wires. Things that I couldn’t ever work without needing Isaac’s help. 

_Well, if we can’t buy him anything we’ll make something from scratch, just like we have always done in the Compound. We’ll think of something._

 

\-----

When Jesse came home from work on Christmas evening we barely gave him time to shower and change before sitting down to what was effectively our first Christmas dinner. Everything was perfect - or at least it seemed that way to us: I had never cooked a whole turkey before, nor  had I ever baked a pumpkin pie, but I’d meticulously followed the recipes that Jesse had printed out for me from his computer, and both had turned out pretty well, judging by his appreciative comments, and by the speed by which Zac was shovelling the food in his mouth. Jesse had told us that in Australia Christmas was in the middle of the summer, and although they still had turkey, they didn’t have pumpkin pie; and when he’d first arrived in CANAAN, that was one of the foods he couldn’t wait to try. I watched Jesse polish off mouthful after mouthful, thrilled to see him enjoy his favourite dessert - _that I had made for him_. He had two slices - and so did Zac - and afterwards, for a while, we were all too full to move. Until Zac said _when are we opening our presents?_ and we slowly got up, and went and sat by the Christmas tree. 

We each got a button-up flannel shirt in different colours and a pack of t-shirts - _“I got you some clothes so that you don’t have to keep borrowing mine”_ Jesse had joked. Isaac got a tub of a sticky paste to put on his hair instead of the soap he’d always used; his hair was my older brother’s only vanity and it was always perfectly combed and slicked back, rising at the front like the crest of a wave that would sometimes collapse to let a rebellious curl hang loose on his forehead. I got a book called _On The Road_ that Jesse had mentioned before. “ _Inspiration for a road trip?”_ \- read the note in Jesse’ handwriting on the first page. And then Jesse got up and went to his bedroom, reappearing only seconds later with Zac’s present: a guitar, with a red paper bow attached to the neck. He handed it to our brother, who was sitting with his legs crossed on the floor. 

“I hope you like this, Zac”

Zac ran his big, spade-like hands over the mystery object, until his thick stubby fingers brushed against the strings and made a twang that made my baby brother jump. 

“It’s a left-handed acoustic. I’m right handed so…mine was no good for you. I’ll teach you the basics”

The expression on Zac’s face as Jesse put the guitar in his lap was something I will never forget: a mix of child-like wonder and disbelief, and that sudden, indescribable realisation that a whole new world of possibilities has just opened up in front of you. It didn’t matter that it was - to use Jesse’s words  - only a learning guitar, that it really didn’t cost that much. Maybe Jesse didn’t fully understand what his choice of gift really meant to my brother, and to us - although I suspect that deep down he did, but was unprepared for our reaction and uncomfortable with our gratitude. 

 _To you, maybe it’s just a musical instrument, but to my brother, it’s hope_.

We only had one present for him, but one which we’d all worked on in equal measure. Even Zac had momentarily snapped out of his lethargy and sat at the kitchen table with unprecedented dedication, with me at his side talking him through it, at times holding his left hand and the pencil he was gripping, putting my words into lines and shapes that he could see. We worked on it for days, while Isaac made a frame out of scraps of wood he’d found in a dumpster during our daily walks to the park. 

When Jesse tore the wrapping paper open, we held our breath, and I suddenly felt embarrassed and self-conscious at our home-made gift. What use would a _doctor_ have for a framed picture, after all? 

“Who made this?” he said.

“Zac did” I said when it was clear that my brother wasn’t going to reply.

“You helped me” Zac mumbled. “Ike made the frame”

Jesse stared speechless at the framed picture he was holding in his hands. The three of us, and Jesse, by the ocean. Our baby brother had drawn it with uncanny accuracy: a man he’d never seen, in place he’d never been to. And our faces, not forgotten.

It could well be that I just imagined Jesse’s eyes glistening with tears, and the rapid blinking of eyelids that followed. And maybe I didn’t really see our friend - _our only friend -_ swallow hard and take a deep breath in, before wordlessly looking at each one of us. But I knew what I heard, and it was all I wanted to hear, and infinitely more. 

_“Thank you”_


	14. Safe Room

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> POV: Zac  
> Chapter Word Count: 3,684
> 
> Please download the compendium to The Innocents - 'The Flock for Dummies' guide for anything cult-related. The guide is constantly updated as new content is added to the story.
> 
> http://www.mediafire.com/view/u8df21cj4ai791d/The_Flock_For_Dummies.pdf

After that first night at Jesse’s place, when we first heard _music,_ we asked him to play for us whenever he was around; I liked the violin and the sounds it made, but it was music without words. On the piano, though, and especially on the guitar, Jesse played _songs,_ and as he sang, sitting on the couch in front of me and my brothers, it felt as if he was singing only _for me_.Everything else seemed to disappear as we’d ask him to play another song, and then another; every time, I could have sat listening for hours. I was captivated by the intangible combination of music and words; I wanted to understand it, decode it, but I could only feel it.

I’d asked Jesse if he had written all those songs but he’d laughed and said _‘I wish’._ He said that those songs were classics now - that although they had been written decades before, everybody still knew them. I could have listened to him for hours,  singing softly about _starry nights,_ and _rivers_ and girls with names like _Polly_ and _Marianne_ , even if his voice was unsteady, and sometimes it cracked. Even if I didn’t know anything about music, I could tell that Jesse’s singing was far from perfect, and yet, hearing it was like nothing else I’d ever heard - or _felt_ \- before. 

Jesse said he’d teach me to play something,  but then when he came home from the hospital night after night, nothing had seemed to come of it, and I thought he’d changed his mind, or maybe he was pretending he’d forgotten. I felt like reminding him, but I didn’t want to hear the hesitation in his voice telling me that it had only been an empty promise. That he hadn’t really meant it.

But on Christmas evening, he gave me a guitar - _my own guitar_. And then that night, after we’d all opened our presents and Taylor was reading his book, and Isaac had fallen asleep with his head on Taylor’s legs, Jesse sat down next to me and put my fingers on the guitar strings, and taught me a _chord._ At first it was hard to feel the strings - I couldn’t tell where they were, and my hands felt so big and clumsy, like they were covering all the strings at once. But Jesse picked up my fingers between his and moved them to the exact spot where they had to be, and pressed them down the strings, and I thought maybe it was normal for a doctor to have really nimble fingers like his. I remembered how gentle he’d been at the hospital, and how everything he did had seemed so precise and deliberate. Maybe that helped with playing music, too. He sat with me for a while, and he was so patient, going over and over the same thing, moving my fingers back in the right place. _‘That’s it, you’ve got it now’_ he kept saying, and even if it probably wasn’t true, it was nice to hear it. 

When he said that he he was working early in the morning, we all went to bed.  But I couldn’t sleep. I lay there, between my brothers, wide awake, hearing things, _seeing things_. Notes, driving circles around me, and pictures, pictures that my mind was digging up from places that I didn’t remember. So many pictures, too many, and in the end I tried to keep my eyes open, searching the familiar darkness of the room for _quiet_.  When I woke up the next morning, Jesse’s songs were still whirling in my head.

 

\------

Since leaving the Compound, I’d been drowning in noise _._ It first hit me in the back of that truck and followed me ever since, when we waited by the roadside, at the the City bus station, in the communal tent on our first night at the camp. There were sounds that I couldn’t decipher coming from every direction, and they made me jumpy and irritable. It was not like that at the Compound. I was not prepared for all that noise.

When I left the hospital I found myself having to re-learn to do even the simplest things - things that I had always taken for granted, such as shaving, or brushing my teeth. Now, the colour coding of our toothbrushes was utterly useless to me, and so were my brothers’ attempts to adapt things in the apartment to give me the illusion of independence. I quickly became frustrated and gave up. Learning to adapt meant accepting that I would never see again; no more looking into my brothers’ eyes, no more painting the things I saw every day, like the burnt hues of the sun setting over the Compound. Thinking _never_ was unbearable, enough to make my heart race and have me gasp for breath. I soon realized that the only way I could get through the day was if switched off and didn’t think, and I set out to do just that: I took my mind by the hand like I used to do with my schoolchildren, and took it some place else, some place safe. I locked the door and propped a chair against the handle so that nobody could break in. 

My brothers tried everything they could to bring me out again. I could hear the forced optimistic tones they used with me as they encouraged me to do  simple things by myself, like shaving, or making myself a sandwich. 

_“You can still do everything you could do before”  -_ they would say; _“Only in different ways. You just need to learn how”_

Sometimes I’d just nod absent-mindedly and pretend to agree, just to get them off my back. But sometimes my mind would break out of its secret hiding place and that’s when I’d lash out at my brothers, demanding that they stop telling me what to do, rejecting their love which I perceived as pity. After every outburst I’d be racked with guilt, and shame, but too proud to apologise. Instead, I’d just retreat into myself a little further, to the only place where I could do no damage. But it was too late, and I knew it. I’d ruined our lives for good, and because of me we all struggled, even if Taylor and Isaac tried to hide it from me. But I knew my brothers too well. Soon after I’d left the hospital, I was classified as ‘unproductive’, and without any warning, I stopped receiving my weekly tokens allowance, and the three of us had to share two people’s food rations. 

Taylor began to come home from the Club House later and later, always making up some excuse about functions running late or the officers not wanting to leave the bar.

Of course, back then _I didn’t know_. But it was obvious that he was working harder to make up for my loss of earnings. That made me feel even more worthless, and even more guilty. 

I sometimes wondered if it would have been easier had it all ended there, at the infirmary. I considered doing something about it - putting an end to the colourless mornings and endless evenings. But even thinking of how to do it was too much effort, and deep down even at my lowest ebb I knew that by taking my own life, I would have also taken my brothers’.

Months passed and I felt like I was just watching time passing by. I sat, I waited. My brothers left me on my own as little as possible, applying for special exemptions  from Processing Training and trying to adapt their working hours so that they could take turns to be with me. They, in turn became _unproductive -_ and no doubt were flagged up as such on the Discipline Office list. But still none of us had any idea of what was about to happen.

We didn’t have to wait  too long to find out.

One evening, they just came and took me away. 

It was a wake-up call - in the space of an instant I knew that what I had was enough, that I could go on without seeing but not without my brothers.  As I kicked and screamed and tried to bite the arms that were dragging me away, I knew that all I had done in the past few months was to hurt the only two people who had ever loved me. Even if I couldn’t see their distress, it was all there in their voices: I could hear it, I could feel it. It was too late - the last time I heard Taylor he was screaming out for me between rage and tears, until I was bundled into a van and then there was only silence, and more darkness.

By the time they’d got me out, I was broken.

 

\-----------

I knew exactly what Isaac was trying to do when he started to ask me ‘tactful’ questions while we waited for Taylor to come back to our tent in Blue City. I knew my brother and his discreet, non-confrontational ways. He tried to get me talking about what had happened - to entice me out of the dark, dank cave I had crawled into. I knew he just wanted to help, maybe in the misguided belief that sharing things out loud would somehow lessen the pain they’d caused. But we’d all been through things that we’d kept from each other - even Isaac. His engagement, for instance, was something that he’d never really wanted to discuss, despite the fact that he’d had sex with a _girl -_ something that both me and Taylor had been dying to know more about. We all had some kind of secret, it appeared, something that for some strange reason we couldn’t bring ourselves to share with each other, despite the fact that we had shared a bed together since childhood. It was only later that I realized that maybe that was why - that we had shared so much, _too much_ since as long as we could remember, that our little secrets were the only things we could really call _our own_.

After a couple of attempts, Isaac stopped asking questions and just let me be. There was nothing to talk about, anyway - what could my brothers do to make it all go away? Did they think that talking would wipe out three months’ worth of fear, and loneliness, and hopelessness? Would talking make me feel less ashamed?

I kept quiet.

Things should have become easier after finding a place to stay and food to eat; I should have felt better. We were reunited and, at least temporarily, out of immediate danger. But in a way, it was almost too good, too comforting. The temptation to curl up in my brothers’ arms was irresistible and, had it been up to me, we would have spent all day in bed, holding each other, drifting in and out of sleep together. In the mornings, I clung on to them for as long as I could as they’d try to get me out of bed, promising coffee and breakfast to entice me away from the warmth of the duvet and the rapidly fading memory of our bodies pressed together. 

I’d get up, eventually, unable to resist the smell of hot food wafting in from the kitchen; being hungry was one of the very few certainties I had, and once knowing what it was like to be starving - _really starving_ \- it seemed absurd not to fill up whenever there was a chance to. And as I wolfed down my meals, I felt more present. For a little while, I felt _alive._

It never lasted long; as my brothers discussed their plans, ‘our plans’ for the future, the emptiness would soon return, although it was  of a different sort - the sort  that came down like a shutter that blocked the light around me and the noise inside me head. They tried to involve me in their conversations about our family, and this father that only Isaac actually remembered, but who meant absolutely nothing to me. There was nothing I could really say to make them change their minds - to make them _see_ that it was futile to look for a man who didn’t want us. The last thing I wanted was to keep searching, to keep moving. I knew it was coming - I knew we couldn’t expect Jesse to let us stay with him forever. We would have to get our own place to live at some point, and _jobs_ , although there was probably no job I could do now. But, if what Jesse had told us about the Exodus was true, that wasn’t going to be easy, with thousands of guys our age wandering around the country in search of work. Sometimes I’d catch myself wishing for our old life at the Compound; it seemed so safe in comparison - we had work, we had a home, we were happy. Only then I’d remember that our happiness had been a brilliant illusion created by my brothers for my benefit, and which I, like a fool, had believed.

My brothers had quickly adjusted to our new lifestyle  and to the Outside; Taylor, especially, seemed so curious about the way things worked, always bombarding Jesse with questions. Sometimes I wondered if it was just an act, so that he could spend more time with him. He clearly _liked_ him, I could tell, even if I couldn’t see, I could still hear the tone of his voice when he spoke to him, and how excited he sounded when Jesse arrived home from work. And once, he went talk to Jesse in his room and they closed the door, and they’d stayed in there for ages. 

Isaac had tried to distract me - he’d said that Jesse and Taylor needed to talk - but I couldn’t help feeling restless, listening out for any signs of Taylor coming out. And then, when he did, I got up and hugged him, and buried my face in his neck, searching for traces of an unfamiliar scent. 

There was none. 

Still, I couldn’t help thinking of how my brothers had described Jesse when we were making the picture - I knew he was beautiful, and very different from me. I’d never given much thought to my appearance, maybe because I’d never needed to - Taylor had always made me feel _wanted_. Now, I wasn’t so sure anymore. I had no idea of what I looked like - all the mirror reflected was a featureless shape. Did Taylor still like me? Since that time when Jesse had walked in on us, Taylor hadn’t touched me again. Not in that way. I tried to get his attention - it had never taken much before - but now he always just said _‘not now, Zac’_ and just kissed me goodnight, leaving me frustrated and wondering if maybe he wasn’t interested anymore. There was still Isaac - I knew that _he_ still wanted me - but when I turned to him, he would just hold me close - so close that I could feel his heart beating fast, really fast, which made me want to shake him and say _why won’t you do something_ but in the end we’d both fall asleep in each other’s arms without anything ever happening.

I tried to tell myself that maybe my brothers were just worried that Jesse would walk in on us again; maybe they were just embarrassed about what happened. But if we couldn’t even be with each other now, what did we have left? What did _I_ have left? - _nothing_. I depended on them for everything in the same way as we all depended on Jesse. Everything was gradually being taken away from me: first my eyesight, then my job, then my sanity. And now, if my brother wouldn’t even touch me anymore, what was the point of getting out of the Detox Center alive? I had nothing - I _was nobody_ without him.

When these thoughts took over, there was nothing I could do to stop them; they spun around inside my head in a whirlwind of anxiety, and as they spun, anxiety became fear - fear that it had all been a mistake, that the Outside really was no place for us. That the Outside would take Taylor away from me and would then stop me from even being with Isaac. That I would be left on my own because nobody else would ever want me in the way my brothers did.

That’s when I shut down, and crawled back into my safe room, and forced myself to stop thinking. It was the only way, even if I could tell that it worried my brothers; I could sense their concern and I knew that they talked about me when I was out of earshot. But whenever they tried to come and talk to me - especially Taylor - I would withdraw even further, every pore of my skin screaming out _let me be._

Then it snowed, and the feeling of the frozen flakes on my face were like a bucket of cold water that brought me round from my slumber. Even if I could only see the fluorescent glare of my surroundings, I could feel the snow, and I could smell it. I could even taste it. Those hours spent throwing snowballs at each other in the park were the happiest I’d had in years. One afternoon, after we got back home, my brothers ran a hot bath so that we could warm ourselves up after being out in the cold.  As I stepped into the warm water, I sensed something unspoken between them, maybe a glance, a flash of mutual understanding. When Isaac left the bathroom and closed the door behind him, I heard clothes softly falling to the floor, and Taylor stepping into the water with me. And then _he touched me_ again, and this time there was no interruption, no mention of any laws we might be breaking, no strange word to describe the crime we were committing. As I felt Taylor’s hands roaming all over my skin, I knew I wasn’t going to last very long - it had been such a long time. I let myself sink deeper into the water, and blood rushed to my head as my body shook and shuddered, and almost convulsed in the release of months of need, a physical, visceral need that only my brother could ever fulfil.

 

\----------

 

Jesse was true to his word, and spent a little time with me each day - sometimes only a few minutes to check on my progress before going to bed after one of his long shifts. On his days off, he’d get his own guitar and practice with me, and it was the most incredible thing to hear myself reproduce the sounds that he was making, tentatively first, then with more confidence as the notes became sharper, cleaner. In my mind’s eye, I marked imaginary spots on imaginary strings, creating a map for my fingers to follow.

During the day, I practiced the chords that Jesse had taught me, until one day he said he’d found some lessons for blind people that I could listen to when he was at work; he put them on the little music box for me, and from that day, I started to learn things on my own. 

It was at that point that I realised that I’d got out of my safe room and made the crossing, and that the hand that had safely led me to the other side didn’t belong to one of my brothers, but to a stranger, _an Outsider_. I thought of the tales I’d been raised with, and of the empty promises about The Shepherd - that one day He would come and lead us, and that the pure would march alongside him, to their salvation. And I thought, _isn’t it funny that, while The Shepherd’s chosen people almost killed me, an Outsider from a far away country has taken his place alongside me and is walking - not marching, just walking - with me, to salvation._

As I slowly resurfaced, I began to look forward to our road trip, and to hearing the sound of the ocean. I tried to prepare myself for our search; I tried to imagine our father. But the only picture that my mind could conjure up was that of The Shepherd - what I remembered of him from the old photos that hung on the walls of every room at the Compound. I imagined him stern and powerful, in his ceremonial uniform complete with stripes and epaulets, and medals earned from made-up battles. In my imagination, The Shepherd morphed into our father, who just like him, had never come back for us, and was not going to lead us anywhere, let alone to salvation.  I knew a lot about The Shepherd’s fabricated legends,  but I knew almost nothing about a man called Charlie who had probably put a false name on our birth certificates. Still it was obvious to me that they had one major thing in common: they had both failed us.

Somehow, that didn’t seem important anymore. I chose to go along with the plan to make my brothers happy, and because for once, this was not just about me _._ I was okay with that. I had found things to do, and when I practiced my chords, it all faded into the background: my father, The Shepherd, the Compound, the raised scars that I could feel on my wrists and on my ankles. My brothers found my new interest reassuring, and stopped probing me for answers, although I knew that, at some point, I’d have to face them.  But not now; there was too much to do before our trip, too many chords to learn. There was plenty of food, and all the different dishes that Taylor cooked from one of Jesse’s recipe books.

There were more walks in the snow. There were my brothers, who had never stopped wanting me. And now, there was always music. 

I was okay with that.


	15. And Miles To Go Before I Sleep

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> POV - Taylor  
> Chapter Word Count: 6295
> 
> Please download the compendium to The Innocents - 'The Flock for Dummies' guide for anything cult-related. The guide is constantly updated as new content is added to the story.
> 
> http://www.mediafire.com/view/u8df21cj4ai791d/The_Flock_For_Dummies.pdf

 

 

 

**THE INNOCENTS - CHAPTER 15: "And Miles To Go Before I Sleep"**

_The woods are lovely, dark and deep._  
But I have promises to keep,  
And miles to go before I sleep,  
And miles to go before I sleep. 

[Robert Frost - _Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening_](http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/171621)

“Want some music on, Zac?” Jesse asked my brother, gripping the steering wheel with one hand as he scrolled through the small screen of the music player with the other.  
“Can we have something with words?” Since he’d been learning to play the guitar, Zac loved _songs_. “But not that really noisy music you’ve played before” he added.  
“No Nirvana. Gotcha” - Jesse pressed play. Once he had Zac’s approval, he plugged the little plastic box into a cradle on the dashboard. “So, are we ready to rock?” he said, glancing at me and then at my brothers through the rear view mirror. “Never mind”, he said to himself once he was met with our confused looks.

I settled into my seat and leaned back against the headrest. Despite the coffee I’d had at breakfast, I was tired. None of us had got any sleep the night before, so anxious and excited we were about the trip. We lay in bed awake for hours, going through all the possible outcomes of our search - what we were going to do if we found our father, what if nothing would come of it. What if he didn’t want to have anything to do with us. Eventually I fell asleep - a light, disturbed sleep with restless dreams, interrupted by my brothers’ tossing and turning beside me. When Jesse knocked at the door to wake us up, I was relieved to know that the night was over.

We drove out of the city and took the highway. We’d set off early, to avoid the time when most people on the Outside got in their cars and drove to work. It wasn’t much different from the Compound - most Flock members worked daytime too, although of course back there we had no cars. Only Officers were allowed to use special shuttles that took them from one end of the Compound to the other, and there were service vans which only a few selected people were allowed to drive - Isaac being one of them. The Outsiders seemed to drive everywhere - all those cars on the road looked like a crazed swarm of insects in their different metallic colours, manically heading to the same destination. I hoped I wouldn’t have to learn to drive any time soon.

We weaved through the rush hour traffic, listening to music and going through our plans for the next few days, when the army trucks started to appear, sporadically at first, then with increased frequency until they outnumbered the cars.

“There seem to be a lot army trucks out on the road” I said, turning to look at the convoy of green vehicles we had just overtaken. “Do you think they’re heading south?”  
“It’s possible. That’s where they government is struggling to contain the migration. Even with all the warnings about the borders being closed, people are still trying to get to the Southern States before the quotas are also introduced there. There’s a fair chance that the President will be re-elected, and if she does, then it will most certainly happen” Jesse said.  
“So what happens to those people? What do the army do to them?”  
“I’m not sure…I guess they just get pushed back. The Government doesn’t seem to have a real plan about the Exodus. They just shove the displaced along, set up tent cities and so on, but they’re not dealing with what’s causing the problem. It’s the unemployment. The country has been in depression for years now and nobody seems to know how to fix it”  
 _Unemployment_. The word alone sounded ominous. It scared me, and I guessed that it scared my brothers, too, as we all fell quiet for a while, probably considering our chances of ever getting some paid work. Where we came from, everybody had work - it was assigned to you the moment you were out of basic training; unless, of course, you couldn’t do anything, like Zac after he’d become blind. But if you were young and healthy, you’d be taken care of.

_Still, I’ll take unemployment any time over the security of the Compound._

 

“Was it hard for you to find a job, Jesse?” Isaac asked.  
“Well, no, but that was before the quotas were introduced, and I was studying at the same time, to convert my Australian medical degree. And there was a shortage of doctors - there still is, in fact” Jesse said, checking his mirrors as he set out to overtake another army truck.  
“Why?” I asked. It seemed strange that with so many people unemployed, more wouldn’t want to be doctors. _I’d love to be a doctor_ , I thought.  
“Probably a combination of factors, one being the fact that college fees are so expensive in CANAAN now, that not many people can afford to go to med school”  
“Is it cheaper to study in Australia then?” Isaac asked.  
“Well, it’s less expensive, put it that way. It’s not completely unaffordable” Jesse said. “And I got a scholarship so I didn’t have to pay the full amount.” He glanced at me. “A scholarship is when the university pays for some of your fees. You need to have really high grades to get one though” he explained.  
“So…why can’t they give scholarships here too?” I asked.  
“I’m sure they still do but they are probably few and far between. Now that we’re in a depression, even universities have little money to spare. So fewer scholarships, fewer doctors. Especially from what used to be the USA. Most new doctors hired at my hospital are female and from former Canada. It’s clear who the President is favouring at the moment” he said in a resigned tone.  
“It doesn’t sound like a very nice country to live in, CANAAN” I said, almost to myself.  
“Have you ever thought of going back to Australia?” Zac’s voice startled me from the back of the car. I had assumed he was lost in the music that was still playing through the speakers.  
“Yes, of course I have. But…there’s not much left there for me” he said.  
“What do you mean? What about your family?” I asked.  
“I don’t have any close family left. My parents … _passed away_. I don’t have any brothers and sisters” he said, staring at the road ahead with renewed concentration. I got the distinct feeling that it was time to stop asking questions. I was frantically thinking of something to say to change the subject, when Zac came to my rescue.  
“Are we going to stop somewhere for lunch at some point? I’m hungry”

 

\----

We’d never been to a restaurant. Sitting at a window table of a roadside diner, it struck me how normal it was for Outsiders to eat in restaurants, and cafés - I’d seen so many of those places in the City but I’d never been inside. At the Compound, there were common mess rooms, and we didn’t pay for our meals - they was provided as part of the job or training programme. But the food was pretty bland, intended to fill you up and not much else.  
Outsiders’ food was very different. As Isaac read out the menu to Zac, listing a bewildering choice of different types of hamburgers and other dishes, I realised that my mouth was watering.  
 _This is compulsion. If I were still at the Compound, this would be exactly the type of reaction I should be trying to eradicate. It’s strange to think that there’s nothing wrong with it_.

“So, what do you fancy, Zac?” Jesse asked him.  
“Hmmm. I don’t know, there’s too much choice. What should I have?” Zac said, turning to Isaac for help.  
“Don’t ask me, I’m just as confused as you are” Isaac said.  
“Maybe you might like what I’m having?” Jesse suggested.  
Some ten minutes later a waitress placed four identical plates in front of us. I’d never seen so much food in one plate before, not since the breakfast Jesse had made us on that first morning back from Blue City. The hamburger was huge, stacked like a small tower made up of different layers - bacon, cheese, mushrooms, all firmly secured by wooden skewer in the middle. All around it where curls of fried potatoes cut in a spring-like shape - like the ringlets that sometimes broke free from Isaac’s meticulously styled quiff.  
“Wow” Isaac said.  
“You’re going to like this, Zac” Jesse said, leaning back on the booth, a grin creeping up on his face in anticipation.  
 _That’s going to end up all over the table and the floor_ , I thought, as I watched with apprehension Zac attempt to tackle the elaborate construction.  
“I can do this by myself” he said, dismissing Isaac’s offer of help, stabbing the hamburger with his knife and fork.  
I shot a worried glance at the other occupied tables, wishing that my younger brother hadn’t picked our first ever restaurant meal to make a public display of independence.  
“It’s all right, Tay, I’m here if he needs me” Isaac said, intercepting my look.  
Reluctantly, I took my eyes off Zac’s plate and tried to focus on the enormous pile of food in front of me. I didn’t think I was particularly hungry - years of not having very much had trained me to get by on very little - but the first mouthful awakened a deep-rooted hunger that I didn’t know I had. I realised then that it was obviously easier to control your appetite when the food was so bland that you could barely make yourself swallow it.

We were all soon busy demolishing our meal, talking and making plans for the journey in between mouthfuls. Zac was quiet, his brow furrowed in utmost concentration as he focused on proving to us that he could cut his food without causing too much carnage. Occasionally, Isaac would subtly reposition Zac’s plate to bring it closer to our brother and to pick up a stray coil of fried potato that had been flung away by a flick of the cutlery. I had to admit to myself that Zac wasn’t doing too badly, all considering.

The waitress returned to take away our empty plates and before she had even had a chance to finish her sentence, Zac had already agreed to desserts.

“Alright-y! I’ll come back with the menus, then!” the waitress said cheerfully, before walking off, her arms laden with plates. A few seconds later, she was back with four glossy menu cards. She held one out to Zac.  
“It’s okay, he doesn’t need one” Isaac raised a hand to stop her.  
The woman shot Zac a curious look. She looked in her mid fifties, with brassy blonde hair neatly gathered in a ponytail that curled at the end.  
“So, you guys are on a trip?” she said as we studied the menus.  
“Yeah, something like that” said Jesse.  
“Oh how neat! Heading south?”  
“Yes, we are” Jesse said.  
“You know the borders are closed and patrolled down south, right?” she said in a casual tone.  
“Yeah, it’s ok, we have papers” Jesse said with a tight-lipped smile.  
“Oh that’s good. I just figured that … you might not know, y’know. You’re not from here, right honey?” she asked, looking at Jesse, her head cocked to one side.  
“I’m from…we’re from the City” Jesse said. His leg was shaking next to mine as he tapped his foot under the table.  
“Oh, but what I mean, you’re not from CANAAN, right? Are you from England?” she insisted.  
“I’m originally from Australia, but I live here now” Jesse said, a flicker of impatience flashing on his face. “Has Zac decided what he’s having, Isaac?”  
“Yes I think s..-“  
“Australia! I knew you were foreign” the woman said, sounding quite pleased with herself. “You’ve come to look for work here sweetheart? Might not be the best time, you know” she said.  
“I _work_ in the City. I’m a doctor” Jesse said, dryly.  
“Oh, a doctor, that’s lovely” the waitress said, genuinely impressed.  
“Hum, Zac’s having the chocolate cheesecake” Isaac interrupted.  
“Great choice, honey!” the woman scribbled the order in her notepad. “And what are you boys having?” she said.  
“Just coffee for me, thank you” Jesse said.  
“Same here” I said, too full to eat anything else.  
“And me” Isaac said.  
“Great! Three coffees and a chocolate cheesecake. Coming right up!” the waitress said as she finally got the hint that the conversation was over.

 

“Is it normal to ask some many questions to someone you don’t know?” Isaac asked once the woman had disappeared into the kitchen.  
“Well, it’s common, but it’s not exactly a sign of good manners. I used to get that a lot when I first came here. _Where’s your accent from, what made you come here_ ,….I’ve got used to it. It’s not so bad in the City…and at the hospital they know me by now, but I don’t think there are many Australians coming into CANAAN at the moment” he sighed.  
I wondered why that was the case, but Jesse had already answered enough questions. It was strange to think that he was an outsider among the Outsiders. To us, he was one of them, but to them maybe he appeared as strange as we did to him.

 _Maybe that’s why he decided to help us. Maybe he knows what it’s like to feel completely lost and without a clue of what to do, where to go, how to behave. To constantly worry about doing the wrong thing_.  
The thought was strangely comforting, and it made me feel a little closer to him. I had always wondered what the motivation was behind his kindness, and maybe this was it. _He helps us because he’s one of us_.

The waitress returned with Zac’s chocolate cheesecake and our coffees and had already disappeared back into the kitchen, when a really tall man in a blue cap suddenly appeared by the side of our table, towering over us with his arms crossed. I looked questioningly at him, and then at Jesse. _Why is everyone on the Outside so big and tall?_ I thought, thinking of our truck driver, and Detective Weathers. _There are a lot of giants among the Outsiders_.  
“Can I help you?” Jesse looked up, turning his head to face him.  
“Can I help you?” the giant repeated in mocking tone which, I figured, was supposed to imitate Jesse’s accent.  
Jesse stiffened and sat up, slowly turning his body all the way to face the man. I glanced at my brothers sitting across the table - almost imperceptibly, Zac inched a little closer to Isaac.  
“I heard you talking to that waitress…you people make me sick, you come over here and act like you own the goddamn place, and you take jobs that could go to one of them young guys who have to sleep in them damn tents ‘cause they can’t get work!” the man burst out, pointing his finger at Jesse.  
“Ooo-kay. I’m not getting into this discussion” Jesse said after a pause. His voice had a steely edge that I had never heard before. He signalled at the waitress at the other end of the diner. “Can we have our check please?”  
“I’m still talking to you, you fag’ the guy went on, spreading his open palms on our table and leaning over Jesse so close that their faces were almost touching.  
“And I am still not” Jesse answered.  
“What, you’re too good to talk to a honest hard working CANAAN citizen? But you’re still happy to take someone’s job, aren’t you?”  
In that moment, the waitress appeared at our table.  
“Is there a problem, boys?” the waitress looked alarmed as she handed Jesse a small plate with the check.  
“No, we are just leaving” Jesse took some dollar bills from his wallet and put them on the plate. “Let’s go, guys” he added, getting up. As we all stood up, the man’s face turned a deep shade of purple.  
“You ain’t going nowhere until I’m finished talking to you” he barked right in Jesse’s face.  
“ _Get. Out. Of. My. Way_ ” Jesse said very slowly. He enunciated each word as if talking to someone hard of hearing. I had never seen him like that.  
Isaac stuck out his arm to keep Zac behind him - our younger brother was, like me, standing trapped between the table and the booth, with the window to one side and Isaac on the other. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the waitress grab the check and the money and scurry off towards the kitchen.  
“I think you’ve said enough” my older brother said.  
“I don’t care what _you_ think, pal.” the man shot back, with a sneer. “I’m talking to your friend. Oh, sorry, I bet he’s your _girlfriend_ , right?”

 _“ENOUGH!”_  
A man in a white apron had just appeared from the kitchen door and was walking in long, purposeful strides towards our table. The waitress followed him a couple of steps behind, clutching the orders notepad to her chest.  
“What the hell is going on here? I’m not having fights in my premises” he said, planting himself arms crossed and feet shoulder-width apart in front of the guy who was harassing us. Instantly, the guy took a step away from Jesse, who up until now had been pinned to the edge of our booth.  
 _Finally_ , I thought. _The owner_. He wasn’t as tall as the giant, but his solid, stocky build and thick, greying beard made him look intimidating enough.  
“I was just talking to _this gentleman_ , but he thinks he’s too good to talk to me” the guy said, gesturing at Jesse.  
“And we are just trying to leave” Jesse said to the owner.  
“Well I hope it’s not because of whatever this gentleman said. Now will you step back and let these guys get out, or shall I call the cops?”  
The man scowled, but took another couple of steps backwards.  
“Let’s go” Jesse said, turning to me, then to the owner. “Thank you”  
“Don’t mention it” the owner said, glaring at the still red-faced man.  
We made our way toward the door, Jesse and I walking right behind my brothers. Zac’s fingers were tightly clasped around the top of Isaac arm.  
“You ok, Zac?” I said in a low voice.  
“I’m -“ Zac was cut off by the same booming voice of a minute earlier.  
I stopped and turned to look behind me. The giant was yelling at us from the back of the restaurant.  
“Sooner or later CANAAN’s going to be overrun by foreigners, and fucking fags! Even that _retard_ ’s got a better chance to get a job than my son!” he shouted, pointing at Zac.  
“What did you just call my brother?” I said, my voice shaking.  
“You heard” the guy retorted.  
“Tay, let it go” Isaac said behind me.  
“No.”  
I walked to the back of the restaurant where the man was standing, the owner still blocking his path. I felt the eyes of the other customers follow me as the room suddenly became silent.  
“Taylor!” Jesse called out. “Come on mate”  
“Kid, just leave it, okay? Consider this valued customer banned from these premises from now on” the owner said.  
I stopped in front him, blanking him.  
“My brother is _blind_.” I said to the man from over the owner’s shoulder “And if it wasn’t for that _foreigner_ over there, he might not even be here today. Because not a single CANAAN citizen would help us when he was sick!”  
The man opened his mouth to speak but was momentarily lost for words.  
“Think of that if you ever end up in the ER” I said, before turning away.  
I walked towards the door, my heart kicking so hard inside my ribcage that my rib started to hurt again.  
“Come on Taylor” Jesse put his hand on my back once I’d caught up with them. “Let’s go”.

\---------

“I’m sorry you guys had to see that”  
Jesse’s jaw was clenched as he fumbled with the control of the music player. A song came on - it was loud and _noisy_.  
“It’s not your fault, it was that guy who started it!” I said, a little louder than I was comfortable with to make myself heard over the music blaring through the speakers.  
“Jesse, can you change the song?” Zac’s head poked in between the two front seats. “I don’t like this very much”  
Jesse blinked - a split second of annoyance crossing his face. He jabbed at the music player again, finally choosing something a lot mellower than the previous song. He pressed a button on the dashboard a few times, turning the volume down.  
“Is the current choice to your liking, Zac?” he said, turning toward my brother, whose head was still taking up the gap between our seats.  
“Yes, thank you” my brother grinned, before leaning back on his seat.  
I noticed Jesse’s face relax a bit, and wondered if my brother’s request for a change of music had just been an attempt to lighten the atmosphere. If so, it had worked.

“Jesse….has anyone said those things to you before?” I asked after a while.  
“Yep” Jesse sighed. “Especially in recent months. I’ve even had a patient refuse to be treated by me as soon as he heard me speak”  
“I don’t understand. It’s not your fault if there aren’t enough jobs” I said.  
“No, it’s not, but I can sort of see where they’re coming from. They don’t know me, they don’t know how long I’ve been here for” he shook his head. “These are pretty desperate times”  
“It’s still no excuse to attack you like that guy did” Isaac said.  
“No…well, that’s rednecks for you” Jesse said.  
“What’s a redneck?” Zac asked.  
“A redneck is an ignorant prick like that guy in the diner. Their only counter argument to anything is to call someone a fag. You can’t argue with people like them, which is why I was trying to stay out of it. Not to mention that he was twice my size, and I didn’t really want us to end up in a police station for a bar brawl” he said, his eyes still fixed on the road.  
“I hope we’re not going to meet more people like him” Zac said.  
“Well, I can’t promise that we won’t come across any more idiots but let’s hope that we’ve hit our quota for the next couple of days” Jesse said.  
“It’s going to be okay, Zac” I said, turning to face my brothers in the back seat of the car.  
“I hate not being able to do anything” he said, quietly.  
I could well imagine. In the old days, Zac would never have kept his mouth shut in the kind of situation we had just been in - he had even been in trouble with his Training Officers on more than one occasion for answering back during drills - one of the reasons why he had failed his Intermediate Levels. It was a rather infuriating trait of his personality, and one that I had never thought I’d miss.  
“Sometimes the best thing to do is to do nothing, Zac” Jesse said, glancing at the rear view mirror.  
“I don’t want to sit back and do nothing forever though” Zac said.  
“Your time will come, you’ll see” Jesse laughed. “You’ll have plenty of bullies to face. One battle at a time, mate”

_One battle at a time. Well, that really sums up our last couple of months._

I turned to look out of the passenger window. There was still some snow on the hills that flanked the highway, but the sky that stretched in front of us was cloudless and almost impossibly blue, untainted, _pure_. Mile after mile of road unrolled in front of us, as if a whole new world was being created there and then, appearing all around us like silhouettes from a pop-up book. It was a world fraught with dangers but also crammed with the kind of new experiences that until recently we could only have dreamed of. It was a frightening and exhilarating feeling to be free.

\-------------

We drove on for what seemed like forever, with only a short stop to stretch our legs, use the bathroom and grab some more snacks for Zac. The experience in the diner had left us on edge, and it was obvious that we all wanted to be in the car again - it was our little bubble, a moving version of Jesse’s apartment, the only place where my brothers and I had felt safe since leaving the Compound.

Back on the road, the landscape changed from snow-covered hills, to endless expanses of flatlands dotted with the occasional barn, and little else. We saw cows - a lot of cows. There were plenty of geckos and lizards hiding under the dry, rocky soil of the Compound, but as far as farm animals, they were as exotic to us as the lions and elephants we’d read about in our school books. Everything was new to us, and we couldn’t resist pointing things out to each other - to Jesse’s obvious amusement. I felt a bit bad for Zac though - I could tell that he was trying to sound interested in Isaac’s detailed descriptions of the sights we were driving by. I could only imagine how my brother felt inside, knowing that he would never fully appreciate this whole new world that we were finally allowed to explore. But he was trying, and that was something. It was progress.

It was already dark when the brightly lit sign of a half moon signalled our last stop of the day. Jesse eased the car into a empty spot near the hotel’s entrance and turned the engine off.  
“Okay guys, now, I’ve booked two rooms with queen beds. Once we’ve got the keys you can do what you like, ok?” he said, giving me and Isaac a knowing look.  
“Sure” I said  
“Zac?” Jesse turned to our brother.  
“Yeah, understood”  
“Good. We’ll say that I’m sharing with Taylor and you two guys have the other room” he said, unlocking the trunk. “Let’s go then. I can’t wait to have a shower”.

\--------

“Wow. This is amazing” I said, taking in our room’s décor - all elegantly done in various shades of browns and taupe, down to the matching bed spreads.  
“Seriously? This is a _Wayfarer’s Rest_ ” Jesse laughed. “It’s your run-of-the-mill chain hotel. You wouldn’t want to spend your honeymoon here, trust me”  
“Well, maybe it’s not like some of the rooms at the Club House, but it’s still better than any other place I’ve seen, apart from your house” I said, suddenly self-conscious of my inexperience.  
“It’s okay, Taylor, I’m glad you like it. You’re right, it’s not too bad” he said, unfolding a wooden rack and placing our bags on top of it. “Let’s go check out your brothers’ room”.

Isaac and Zac’s room was almost a mirror copy of ours - the only difference being that it faced a rear courtyard rather than the car park at the front of the hotel.  
“Shall we go and grab some dinner? If I’m hungry, Zac must be starving by now” Jesse asked, glancing around the room.  
“He’s just in the bathroom, but if he’s heard the word ‘dinner’ he’ll be out in a shot” Isaac said. “I’ll go and check on him”  
“I’ll do it, Ike” I said.  
I knew that Zac was perfectly capable of using the bathroom on his own, if he was in familiar surroundings. It had taken him a few days to get his bearings at Jesse’s place, during which he had bumped into doors and furniture, dropped things, spilled things and had a few bathroom ‘accidents’, of which he had been totally oblivious. I didn’t mind having to clean up after him, but Isaac hand’t let me do much lately because of my broken rib. I sensed he enjoyed his new role of carer, so I’d taken a step back, despite feeling slightly guilty whenever I got to sit down with a book instead of tidying up after my younger brother.

Zac was already zipping up his pants when I cautiously pushed the door open and stepped into the bathroom.  
“Are you ready to go and get some dinner, Zac?” I asked, peering behind him to assess any potential damage.  
“Where are we going?”  
My brother’s voice betrayed his anxiety - he was obviously still shaken from our encounter of a few hours earlier.  
“There’s a place next door. It will be okay this time, don’t worry” I said in the most reassuring tone I could muster. “Wash your hands before we go” I said, stopping him in his tracks before he could leave the bathroom.  
“Sorry. I forgot” he said, turning back towards the wash hand basin. I turned on the taps for him and took a miniature bar of soap from a small metal dish, unwrapped it, and placed it in his hands.  
“Here you go. There’s a towel just by your side here” I said, satisfied that he could take over from there, and walked back into the bedroom.  
“Is he ready?” Isaac said, checking his hair on a large mirror hung over a chest of drawers.  
“Yes he’s just wash-“ I was stopped mid-sentence by a loud shriek followed by the smell of something burning. I rushed back into the bathroom.  
“Zac? Are you ok?”  
My brother was standing a couple of feet away from the towel rail, shaking. His fingers were contracted and curled into his palms like claws.  
Isaac and Jesse were immediately behind me.  
“There’s a loose wire on that thing. He must have touched it by accident” Isaac pointed at the hairdryer that was left dangling by its cord from a plastic holder on top of the towel rail.  
“Let me have a look at him” Jesse pushed past me. “Zac, are you okay?” he said, putting his hand on my brother’s shoulder. “You got an electric shock mate, not a very strong one by the look of it” he continued. “Did you burn your hands? Can you show me?” he pressed, keeping his eyes trained on my brother’s.  
“Zac, buddy, answer him” Isaac said in that unnaturally calm tone he used when he was actually really worried.  
“You’re okay - you just got a fright Zac” Jesse said “Will you let me see your-“  
“Jesse..” I cut him off, pointing at my brother’s pants. A wet patch was spreading quickly from his front down to his groin, instantly turning the fabric darker. I stared in disbelief at the wet streaks running down the legs of Zac’s pants as my mind struggled to process the fact that my grown-up brother had just wet himself.  
“What’s the matter with him, Jesse?” Isaac said, this time without even attempting to disguise his panic.  
“He’s okay, these things happen” Jesse said. He didn’t sound concerned, but his brows were contracted into a frown. “You’re okay, Zac. Now, let’s get you cleaned up”

My brother barely blinked as we helped him out of his clothes and guided him into the bath. I ran the shower head over his groin and thighs, trying to ignore the tears streaking down my brother’s face as his body relaxed under the jet of warm water. We worked as quickly as we could, keen to get him dry and dressed as soon as possible. Jesse passed me a large bath towel while Isaac disappeared back into the bedroom, reappearing shortly afterwards with clean pants and underwear. Zac’s hands gripped my shoulders tightly while he stepped one leg, and then the other, into the the clean pants I held out for him. He waited for me to zip them up: he had already reverted to helpless, passive Zac of the last two years. As I fumbled with the zipper, I hoped that all his recent progress hadn’t just been erased by a jolt of electricity.

We sat him down on the bed and wrapped him in a blanket that Jesse had found in the closet. My baby brother was shaking so badly now that his whole body was contracting in short, sudden bursts which made him gasp for air. I tightened the blanket around him, and then sat on the bed, watching my brother come undone.

\--------

At first he wasn’t making much sense - speaking in half-choked, broken sentences that seemed disconnected from one another, until it dawned on me that my brother wasn’t talking about what had happened in the bathroom a few minutes earlier. He was talking about the Compound.

He told us about his arrival at the Detox Center, of how he was stripped down to his underwear and made to sit a sauna for what had felt like hours, until everything had gone black and he’d passed out. He told us of what had followed - a cold bath, and then another stint in the sauna, and then again, more of the same, until he thought he wouldn’t make it to the next day. He told us about the bitter liquid they’d made him drink, how he’d thrown it all up, making the attendants angry. How they made him drink it in large quantities every day, and how, in the end, he’d had no choice but to get used to it, because he was thirsty and they wouldn’t give him any plain water.  
We heard about the humiliating daily cleansing routines my brother was subjected to: he described careless hands pushing tubes inside him and filling his bowels with liquid, until he felt as he was being ripped open from the inside. How he’d welcomed the unforgiving coldness of the hard tiled bathroom floor when he was finally allowed to relieve himself - and how respite had been short-lived, before he was made to stand on a metal drain while they hosed him down with cold water.  
How that treatment had been repeated every few days for several weeks until there had been nothing left to cleanse.  
He told us of their threats - that we’d be forced to disconnect from him if he acted ‘difficult’, threats that my brother eventually believed had been carried out. _Because nobody had come for him_ , he said. And now, he added in the faintest murmur, he was so ashamed for believing that we could ever abandon him.

And then he told us that week after week he’d been strapped down to a table and given electric shocks, and that it had hurt like nothing else he had ever known. They didn’t give him any drugs while the shocks were administered, he said in answer to Jesse’s question - only the bitter liquid that had made him vomit on his first day. I watched Jesse slowly run his hands through his hair and take a long, controlled breath, and his reaction made me feel a hundred times worse.

What the Detox Center staff had tried to achieve by torturing my brother, wasn’t clear; a purification of sorts, an attempt to turn his weakness into blind devotion, a success story, perhaps, or a case study to parade to the High Ranks in the hope of further advancement. Who knew. But the lack of results must have frustrated their efforts, as after a few weeks Zac was left pretty much to himself in what was effectively a prison cell. He started to harm himself, bashing his head against the walls, digging his fingernails into his skin until he bled; so they took to strapping him down to his bed, where he was left day and night, with only short breaks for eating, showering and using the bathroom.  
And that’s how I’d found my brother three months after he was dragged away from us: dirty, frail, and broken.

\------

We didn’t go out to dinner, that night. Jesse ordered pizzas that we ate in our room, sitting cross legged on the beds, burdened by the knowledge of what my brother had been put through, those invisible wounds now finally exposed - deep, weeping wounds that would maybe never heal.  
It was a quiet, subdued evening, which even music couldn’t brighten up. There we were, all wrapped in our own personal _whys and what ifs_. I thought back to Layne’s refusal to divulge Zac’s treatment, and his readiness to help us get him out; as for Isaac, I knew he would inevitably feel responsible for letting our brother be taken away from us in the first place.  
Jesse later told us that ECT - _Electroconvulsive Therapy_ , he said it was called - had long been banned as a form of psychiatric treatment, even before the United States of America had been assimilated into CANAAN; he said that even when it was still legal, patients were given painkillers and muscle-relaxants before treatments. He said it was unthinkable to give a patient ECT without medication, and that the thought of Zac suffering so much would always haunt him.

Strangely, it was Zac who all of a sudden seemed at peace. He chewed on his pizza as if nothing had happened, only stopping to wipe his hand on the only clean pair of pants he had left for the trip. When the last slice of pizza was gone, he asked for the ice cream which Jesse had also ordered. As he scooped spoonful after spoonful into his mouth, my brother looked relaxed, reminding me, for a moment, of the old Zac I knew before everything happened. As if all the horrors he had described to us a few minutes earlier had already been forgotten.

But I knew that I could never, _ever_ forget.  



	16. One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> POV: Taylor  
> Chapter Word Count: 8132
> 
> Please download the compendium to The Innocents - 'The Flock for Dummies' guide for anything cult-related. The guide is constantly updated as new content is added to the story.
> 
> http://www.mediafire.com/view/u8df21cj4ai791d/The_Flock_For_Dummies.pdf

There was no way I was going to sleep anywhere but in the same bed as my brothers that night. We pushed the two queen beds together and turned the lights off. In the unfamiliar darkness, we curled up together as if it was going to be our last night on earth. I buried my nose in Zac’s hair, breathing in the traces of the shampoo he had used several hours earlier, before we departed on our journey with hopes and fears but none of the heaviness that was now weighing down on my heart like nothing else I’d ever known. Whatever I’d been through before, when Zac got sick, when he woke up blind and terrified - this was worse.  
I moved my brother’s hair to expose his neck, in search of his scent.  His skin was warm and slightly sticky with perspiration - or maybe it was a layer of dew-like particles of condensation from my breath. I pulled him closer to me until I was positive that there was no space between my heart and the once-strong muscles of his back. Now all I could feel was bones encasing a shell of something irreparably damaged. I ran my arm under his and pressed the palm of my hand against his chest; I wanted to feel his heartbeat - to hear it turn from heavy drumming to the regular, steady rhythm of sleep. I didn’t know what to expect, whether the currents that had been pushed through his body had altered his heartbeat forever; was I looking for evidence? Would I find more scars, more stifled cries - would I find more pain locked away in a hidden cell?  
I held my brother close and then a little closer still. I was probably hurting him, but I couldn’t help myself. I couldn’t let him go, even if I knew that there was nowhere for him to go, only the remaining third of our family breathing beside him. Isaac was awake too. He lay there, holding Zac’s hand in front of him. My older brother, the dependable one, who once again was asking for nothing but whatever was left for us to give. He understood that I needed to be the one comforting our brother that night - that it had to be me.  
I craved closeness. I ached to become one with Zac - to feel his body move and breathe under mine, to hear those sounds again - confirmation that everything was and would always be okay. I was weak and desperate for reassurance and gratification, but as minutes passed I was left awake and wanting, as my brother slipped slowly into peaceful sleep.

\------

The drive was uneventful - more of the same from the day before. We passed through villages and towns and crossed endless stretches of flat lands which only seemed to serve the purpose of being driven through by an endless procession of cars. I just wanted to get there - to go to that government building and search those records and know. To just _know_.  
 _No more surprises. Not after last night._

It was almost noon by the time we reached the Southern States checkpoint. All we could see in front of us was the line of cars, trucks and buses that were slowly making their way across the border. The same army trucks that we had overtaken only minutes earlier on the road were now moving swiftly on a separate line that ended somewhere at a designated gate of the checkpoint. I squinted to make out the sign - MILITARY ONLY.

I clutched our papers in my hands, the plastic photocards sticky and slippery under my fingers. I wiped them dry with my sleeve. This time we had something to prove our existence by, but somehow I was more anxious than I had been on that first encounter with the army officer on that southbound bus a couple of months before. Understanding the system we had been thrust into didn’t make things any easier, in fact, it was the opposite. Now I knew what obstacles were likely to be put in front of us, and I couldn’t help worrying about what would go wrong next.

_I must stop worrying. I’m turning into Isaac_ \- I thought. _It’s going to be fine. We’re almost there. We’ll have an answer by tonight._

As we got closer to the border control, I saw them. The Displaced People, the Exodus. Where the prefab kiosks of the border control gates ended, the wire mesh fencing started on either sides, stretching as far as the eye could see. And lining up all along the length of the fence was a long procession of people, heading towards the main gates.

“They’re trying to head south, aren’t they?” I asked to Jesse.  
“Looks like it. _The Exodus is here_ ” he said. “Just like in the song”  
“What song?”  
“It’s a..a song by an old British band. It has a violin part I learnt when I played with a pub band in Australia. The lyrics don’t make any sense but they sound cool”.  
“Oh”. I didn’t know what to say to that. Sometimes I thought Jesse talked in riddles.  
As we got closer to the fence, I recognised the same sort of  people we had seen as we’d first entered the city a couple of months before: young, mostly male, raggedy, dirty. We must have looked not that much different from them when we dragged ourselves to that hospital - _Golgotha Community Hospital_ \- where we met Jesse.  
 _Who knows where we’d be now if we hadn’t met him_.  
“Tay? Taylor? The papers?” Jesse looked at me questioningly, holding out his open palm. For a split second, I was confused. Jesse had never called me ‘Tay’. That was what my brothers called me. I didn’t mind, but I wasn’t expecting it. I handed Jesse our ID cards and documents, wondering if he realised what he’d just said.  
“You guys let me do the talking, okay?” he said, pressing a button on the dashboard until the window on his side was all the way down.  
Warm air drifted inside the car - it was mixed with the gas fumes, but I could detect the unmistakable scent of dry soil, dust and sand, of bushes and chaparral. I could almost make out the smell of the Compound.  
 _It almost smells like home_.

“Your papers please” - a soldier held out a hand the moment we reached the front gate. He sat inside an open kiosk, raised high enough to offer an unobstructed view inside the car. He took our plastic cards from Jesse’s hand and placed one under a scanner. A flash of blue light was followed by a beeping noise. “Dr Jesse Adams?” the soldier said, looking at Jesse.  
“Yes sir”  
“Citizen of Australia. I have a cousin who moved to Australia” the soldier said, now looking at the computer screen again.  
“Oh, which part?” Jesse asked.  
“Somewhere called Perth I think? He got a job in mining. Couldn’t get anything over here” the soldier said, resigned.  
 _Oh no. Not the job thing again_. I thought. _Not now that we need to cross the border_.  
“Well mining pays very well - people do it for a few years and then go back to their countries a lot richer” Jesse said.  
“That’s his plan” the soldier said, putting the next card under the scanner. Another flash of blue light followed, but this time the beeping sound was different - a lower pitch, prolonged, ominous beep. He tried again, but the same thing happened. The soldier looked at the plastic card, his brow furrowed in concentration, and typed something into the computer.  
“There’s no record for this I.D. card. Which one of you is Jordan Taylor Anderson?”  
I felt as if I’d just been punched in the stomach. _Not again_.  
“That’s me” I managed to say. It was still weird to be called _Jordan_.  
The soldier looked down at the card, then checked the other two. “Anderson, Zachary Walker, Anderson, Clarke Isaac. You all related?” he said without looking up.  
“Yes sir. We’re brothers.” I said, watching him as he slid the cards under the scanner. Same long beep.  
The soldier sighed loudly and once again entered something into the computer. I watched him type and click on the mouse and look back down at the cards, until I realised that I was holding my breath, and had to force myself to exhale.  
The soldier pressed a button on a radio that was clipped to a front pocket right under his chin. He mumbled something that I couldn’t quite understand - it started with _ten_.  
“Mr Jordan Anderson, Mr Clarke and Mr Zachary Anderson, none of you are in the system. Will you please pull over on the other side of the gate, where my colleagues will ask you a few questions” he said, waving us forward.  
“But there has to be a mis-“  
“Will you please move along sir” he said, cutting Jesse’s explanation short.

Jesse started the engine again and drove across the border’s gates. Another soldier signalled for us to stop and pull over to the side.  
“Will you all step out of the car please” the soldier said as soon as the engine had stopped running.  
I got out of the car and I opened the back door to help Zac out.  
“What’s going on now, Tay?” He said, grabbing my arm tightly.  
“I don’t know, some kind of mistake, I hope.”  
“Will you please step away from the car sir!” the soldier barked at me, while another one appeared right behind us. “Please follow me” the first soldier said. We were lead to a concrete block by the side of the border gates, and into a room with a large counter, staffed by more soldiers. Facing the counter were four rows of chairs, some occupied by anxious faces who looked up at us as we were led to the counter.

“We have three suspect false IDs here - Mr Clarke Anderson, Mr Jordan Anderson and Mr Zachary Anderson. Dr Adams appears legit” the soldier said to the other one behind the counter, handing him our I.D. cards.  
I opened my mouth to protest but Jesse lifted his hand as if to stop me.  We waited in silence while the soldier typed something into a computer. I was beginning to really dislike computers.  
“These I.D. don’t match anything in our database. Would you like to explain that?” the soldier finally said, looking up from the screen. He gave us each a long hard look, until his stare stopped on Zac. He glared at him for a few seconds, expecting a Zac to look back at him.  
“What’s wrong with him?” the soldier asked, still staring at my younger brother.  
“There’s nothing wrong with me, I’m blind.”  
 _Great,_ I thought. _Zac has chosen to rediscover his sarcastic side right now that we’re surrounded by armed soldiers. Just great._  
The soldier flinched but said nothing. He picked up Zac’s I.D. again and looked at it closely. Eventually, he put it back down on the counter and resumed typing into the computer.  
“Hmmm” he said after a few long moments. “Just as I thought. Your names come up in the Displaced Status database. Dr Adams” the soldier said, looking at Jesse. “Are you aware that it is illegal to assist Displaced Status migrants to cross the border?” he said, in a tone that was almost casual, but that fully conveyed the threat within.  
“Sir, these are my friends and their papers are not fakes, I don’t know what happened but they were issued by the Detective Weathers of the City Police Department, if you call him I’m sure he will confirm-“  
“Detective who?” the soldier cut Jesse short, grabbing a notepad that was on the counter.  
“Detective James Weathers. He arranged for their papers to be issued. He knows us, he’ll tell you, if you call him” Jesse said. The cool, steely tone he had used during our encounter at the diner had gone, leaving a distinct anxious quality in his voice.  
 _It can’t be good if Jesse is worried._  
“So, you’re telling me that a police detective is friends with Displaced migrants?” the soldier asked jesse, a slight hint of derision barely perceptible in his voice.

“I know Detective Weathers” Jesse said, returning the soldier’s tone. “He helped my friends obtain their papers. Just call him” Jesse insisted.  
The soldier glared at Jesse, and for a moment I thought that they were just going to try and outstare each other. Jesse spoke first.  
“Look - this is his number” he took his phone out of the front pocket of his jacket. “Just call him. We’re going to the San Diego Census Office to find out what happened to their family” he said, gesturing towards us.  
The soldier’s eyebrows lifted imperceptibly as he looked at us with a mix of incredulity and contempt.  
“If we don’t make it to the Census Office by the early afternoon, they will close. We have spoken to a clerk and he said he’d be there today” Jesse tapped something onto the small screen and held the phone out to the soldier. “This is Detective Weathers’ private cellphone number. Please”.

The soldier sighed and picked Jesse’s phone between his thumb and middle finger, as if it was contaminated. He lifted the receiver of his desk phone and dialled the number that was displayed on the screen. All of a sudden, I was conscious that the only noise I could hear was the tapping of keys on the soldier’s phone. _Tap, tap, tap_. I sensed my brothers hold their breath as we waited for Weathers to pick up at the other end. Seemingly endless moments passed, until the soldier spoke into the receiver.  
“Detective Weathers, this is First Lieutenant Hays from the Southern States West Border Control. Would you please call me back as soon as possible in connection with three suspect cases of fake I.D.” He recited a telephone number and hung up.  
“Private Ramirez” he spoke into a radio “Will you please escort these people to to the holding cell.”

\---- ---- -----

We sat across from each other on two steel benches in the airless cell for what felt like forever. Jesse had gone quiet;  was that the last straw for him? Did he regret ever getting mixed up with us? We had nothing to lose, but he had a career, a home, a proper life. If they thought he had something to do with helping us cross the border illegally, he’d be in as big a trouble as we were. The soldier had confiscated his phone, so we had no way to keep trying to call Weathers back ourselves.

_Why is it taking so long for Weathers to call back and fix this? What if he’s away? What if he’s just not interested?_

I went through endless possibilities in my mind - none had a positive outcome. I wanted Isaac to reassure me, but he had gone quiet too. He leaned his head against the concrete wall with his eyes closed; he was tired. How much more could he take - how much more could we all take, really? Why was everything so difficult? I felt the sudden urge to kick something, but there was nothing in the cell except for the two steel benches which were fixed to the walls anyway. I was considering getting up and slamming my fists against the door, when the door clicked open and Lieutenant Hays walked in.

“It appears that you were telling the truth” he said, still sounding diffident. “I’ve spoken to the detective and he confirmed your story. He said he had no idea as to why your I.D.s have suddenly disappeared from the central database”  
Next to me, Jesse let out a big sigh of relief.  
“We have no idea either” he said. “It must have been some kind of mistake”  
“ _Some mistake_. Three new I.D. profiles, same family, all disappeared at the same time, in a puff of smoke. Hhhm.” the soldier said, jutting his jaw out as he was considering the likelihood of what he had just said. “Anyway. Your detective _friend_ has now emailed me all your records and is going to have your I.D.s reinstated. As a result, you are free to go”.  
“Thank you” I let out, instantly regretting my display of gratitude.  
 _It’s not as if we did anything wrong, after all_. But it was just my upbringing - the result of growing up in a place where there was no choice but to respect, _venerate_ hierarchy. Even when you knew that deep down the higher ranks were rotten to the core.  
“You know, something doesn’t sit quite right in this whole story” the soldier said as we stood up. “Records don’t just _delete themselves_.”  
“Maybe someone deleted them by accident, a clerical error” Isaac offered as a way of explanation.  
“There are morons working in the police department, for sure, but there are also systems to prevent this kind of thing to happen. I think there are really only two possible explanations here” the Lieutenant said, crossing his arms.  
“What are you saying?” Jesse asked.  
“Either your detective friend is covering up for your lies, but of course, _I would never doubt the reputation of a high ranking police office_ r” the soldier smirked “or someone somewhere doesn’t want you to exist on the central database at all.”

As we got back in the car and resumed our journey, the soldier’s words felt like a weight pressing down on us, on the roof of car, on the air around us. We’d been driving for several minutes, until I couldn’t take it anymore.  
“Who would want to do that? I mean, seriously, why would anyone want to delete our records? It doesn’t’ make any sense” I said.  
“It probably was a clerical error, Tay” Jesse shrugged. “Honestly, you have no idea of the kind of people who work in government jobs”.  
“But all three of us got deleted? That seems a bit of a coincidence, don’t you think?”  
“I don’t know, maybe several recent records got deleted by accident, who knows. Maybe someone spilled their coffee over the computer after inputting something” Jesse said.  
“What if it’s them?” Zac said behind me.  
“Them who?” Isaac asked.  
“The people back home. I mean, back at the Compound. What if they are trying to stop us?”

\-------

By the time we had arrived to the Census Office it was already mid-afternoon.  
“No time to take the scenic route” Jesse said as punched in our destination into the satellite navigator that was clipped to the dashboard. “I was hoping to get into the city via the coast highway route but we need to get to downtown before the offices close.”  
None of us complained. I just wanted to get there, do what we had to do and know one way or another if there was any point in pursuing our search; I was certain that my brothers felt the same way too.  
Jesse weaved expertly through the afternoon traffic, eyes darting from the rear view mirror to the road in front of us, occasionally glancing at the SatNav, as if he didn’t quite trust the mellifluous female voice giving him directions. I looked out of the passenger window - our surroundings didn’t look so different from the City we had travelled from, with the same shop names in the same bright colours, and the same coffee shops occupying every street corner.  And as we got closer to the the city center, near-identical skyscrapers began to appear, their multifaceted glass façades glistening in the afternoon sun. And then, all of a sudden, it was there. The ocean. It just appeared, as if the city abruptly ended where the horizon started. We could not possibly have driven any further without falling into the sea.

“Here we are” Jesse said, turning into a parking lot to the side of a white concrete building. Unlike the ones we had just passed, it was only a few storeys high, with a taller section in the middle, on top of which the CANAAN flag was flapping in the breeze.  
“The archives are in there” he said as he killed the engine. “We’d better hurry. We can check out the harbor front later.”  
The smell of the sea hit me the moment I stepped out of the car. I thought I had no memories of my childhood, but I knew that salty smell, I knew I’d experienced it before, although I couldn’t quite place where, or when. I just knew that I knew it, the way sometimes you think you remember something from a different lifetime.  
“This is it, isn’t it? It’s the smell of the sea, right?” Zac sniffed the air, turning to face the sea. He squinted. He couldn’t see it, but my brother knew exactly where the ocean was.  
“Wow” Isaac inhaled. “It’s just like I remembered it”  
“Nothing quite brings back memories like a certain smell” Jesse said, staring at the harbour for a moment. “Come on now, let’s go”

\----- -----

Once we had reported to the receptionist, we didn’t have to wait very long to see the clerk that Jesse had spoken to on the phone a few days before.  
“Dr Adams?” a wiry man with thinning ash blond hair appeared from a doorway facing the waiting room where we were sitting. “With Mr Anderson?”  
We stood up.  
“Oh. I see, ahem, yes, three _Mr Andersons_ , right” the clerk said, clearing his throat. “Do come in!”  
I tried to guess the clerk’s age as we followed him into his office; he was one of those people who looked older than they probably were.  
 _I bet he’s not much older than Jesse_.  
“Let me get another couple of chairs” he said, hurrying into a side office, and reappearing seconds later dragging a chair by each side, hitting the door frame in the process. “Here we are!” he said, as he triumphantly placed the chairs next to the two that were already facing the desk. “Right, right, do take a seat!” he said, gesturing at the chairs. We sat down as he did the same.  
“Okay, so…. I believe you are looking for your original birth records and DNA samples, that’s right, yes?” he asked Jesse.  
“Well it’s their birth records, actually...”  
“Oh, yes, of course, of course! Yes I do beg your pardon, yes, yes, you did explain during our telephone conversation as per my notes here…” he studied the piece of paper in front him for a few moments.  
Zac yawned and fidgeted next to me.  
 _I hope this isn’t going to take too long_ , I thought, kicking my brother’s foot under the chair.

“Okay, yes, well, as I said to Dr Adams on the phone” the clerk resumed talking “….the system shows that we do hold a DNA sample for a Charles Smith who is registered as your father in the Census database. There are samples for your registry entries too, but they won’t have been cross checked with your parents’” he clerk said, looking at us, turning his head in tiny, bird-like movements. He quickly looked away from Zac, who, once again, was displaying his lack of interest by hiding behind his hair.  
“So, will we able to take the sample and have it analysed?” I asked.  
“Well, the Archives can’t release an actual DNA sample to a member of the public! Can you imagine _the consequences_? If anyone could just obtain DNA samples for another citizen?” he said, incredulous, as if we had suggested the most outrageous thing.  
“So…what _can_ the Archives release?” Isaac said impatiently. “I thought you said we could get the sample?” he added, turning to Jesse.  
“We can release a 3D mapping of the DNA sample, obviously you’ll have to fill in a form to comply with all the necessary procedures, supplying the Archives with reasons for the request and if approved I -“  
“A 3D what?” Isaac asked, cutting the clerk short.  
“A 3D mapping is like…..a virtual sample. Like…a scan of a document. Or a photocopy. When you request the actual sample from our archives, what you actually get is this virtual copy which you can then pass on to a CANAAN-approved laboratory which you will have instructed to conduct the matching.”  
“I thought the samples were never analysed prior to the assimilation?” Jesse asked, visibly confused.  
“That is not quite accurate actually” the clerk said, raising his index finger “Samples were analysed and mapped, they just never made into the central Census database and thus they are not linked to existing records.”  
“So…what you’re saying is that…you just need to email it to a lab for matching?”  
“Well it’s a bit more advanced than email, but yes, something along those lines.” the clerk said.  
“Okay, so what do we have to do?” I said. I’d heard enough about databases, samples, and records. CANAAN had all these databases, none of which seemed talk to each other, and we still had to turn up in person to the archives to get something…emailed? How was all this technology supposed to make things easier?  
“You fill these forms in, as I said, providing your reasons for the request…but I can already see you have valid grounds for your submission…family identification, yes, and you have your birth records to prove it, so…I should be able to approve your request today. Then you’ll just need to appoint a lab from a list which I shall provide you and-“  
“How long is all this going to take?” Isaac said.  
“Not very long, once the lab gets the sample maybe a couple of days - providing, of course, that there is a corresponding record in the central Census database. But if your….father is a CANAAN citizen, I mean, if he didn’t leave the country after the assimilation, he will be there” the clerk punctuated each word with a tiny nod of his head. “I would also recommend that you requested your own samples to be cross matched and analysed, just to be sure that the man on your birth records is indeed your father.” he added with a little cough.  
“That sounds like a sensible thing to do” Jesse said.  
“Okay, where are the forms that we need to fill in then?” _I can’t take this anymore. More forms and databases_.  
“Here you are” the clerk pushed a piece of paper towards me. “You only need one, but you will all need to sign it” he glanced at Zac with an embarrassed smile.  
“I’m still perfectly capable of signing my own name” Zac said, dryly.  
The clerk’s eyes widened, and I couldn’t resist chuckling to myself. People thought that they could speak as if Zac wasn’t there, but my brother had learned to read people’s unspoken words in the tone of their voices. That kind of snappy remark was definitely a good sign that the old Zac was coming back.  
It didn’t take long to fill in the form - which Zac took great pleasure in signing in huge letters that started straight and then turned into a diagonal scrawl across the bottom of the page. _Zachary Anderson_. He could still sign his name the way he had always done; but I was now _Jordan_ , and Isaac was _Clarke_. It was Jesse who had to remind us to sign by our first names. _This will take some getting used to_.

“Now let me just input your request and then I’ll get our archives to forward the sample map for you” the clerk said without taking his eyes off the computer screen. “It should all be pretty straightforward.”  
 _It’d better be_ \- I thought, catching Isaac’s anxious look. Zac appeared to be looking down to the floor, tapping a slow, regular beat with his foot.  
“Nearly there” I said in a low voice as I put my hand on my younger brother’s knee. We were all sick of waiting and jumping through endless hoops because of CANAAN’s love for bureaucracy. Whatever the outcome, we needed this search to be over, and soon.

The telephone on the clerk’s desk rang, making Zac jump.

“Um, yes?” the clerk looked at me while he spoke into the receiver. “S-sure, I’ll be right there.”  
“Erm, I’m sorry, I just have to go and talk to someone” he said, hanging up the phone. “I won’t be long. Hopefully.” he said, rushing out of the room.  
“What now?” I turned to Jesse. “How much longer is this going to take?”  
“I’m sure it won’t be much longer, Tay. We’re in a government administration department, they’re hardly known for their efficiency. You know what it’s like.”  
“No I don’t know what it’s like, actually.” I snapped.  
“Well, it’s like _this_.” Jesse said, holding out his open palms as if to demonstrate a point. “You go to a government department and take a book because you don’t know how long you’re going to have to wait for. You’re going to have to get used to this, unless you want to go and live in a cave somewhere and be a hermit.”  
“Or go back to the Compound, you mean” I said.  
“I didn’t mean that Tay, but I’m just saying, this is how things work out here.”  
“It’ll be ok, we’ll be out of here soon” Isaac said. “I’m looking forward to smelling that sea air again.” he added with a little smile.  
“Me too.” I said, leaning back on the chair. I had just closed my eyes for a second, letting my mind conjure up the image of the harbour we had barely just seen, when the clerk walked back in.  
“I’m sorry, but there’s a problem and I won’t be able to approve your application for the sample after all” he said, his words spilling out quickly, one on top of the next. “I am going to have to ask you to leave now, please, thank you.”  
“What?” I said, echoed by Isaac and Jesse. Zac groaned, just loudly enough for everyone to hear.  
“I’m sorry, I do appreciate that this is not the outcome you were hoping for but I am simply _unable_ to help you, do you understand?” the man said, rubbing at his hands. He glanced at the door. “Please go. Otherwise you’ll give me no choice but to call security.” he said in a tone that sounded almost pleading.

_This cannot be happening_.

“What are we supposed to do?” I looked at Jesse in disbelief but he, too, was lost for words.  
“This doesn’t make any sense, only five minutes ago you said you were going to approve our request!” Isaac said. “Why won’t you do it now?”  
“Please go!” the clerk raised his index finger as if to instigate a command, then lowered it immediately, tightening both hands into a fist. “I… I will call security! I.. I mean it!” he said, eyeing the telephone on his desk.  
“Let’s just go, guys.” Jesse said, getting up.  
“But Jes-“  
“ _Let’s go_ , Taylor. Okay?” he said, his eyes fixed on mine. “Okay? We’ll talk about this in the car.”  
“I knew it” Zac muttered to himself as he got up from his chair. I took his hand and placed it over the crook of my elbow.  
“Come on Zac, let’s get out of here.”

We walked out of the clerk’s office and back into the building’s main hall. As we walked away, I thought I’d heard the clerk’s voice again. I was pretty sure he said “ _I’m sorry_.”

We rushed out of the building, struggling to keep up with Jesse who appeared to be in a real hurry to get back to the car.  
“Tay…” Zac tugged at my arm.  
“What?”  
“I need to go to the bathroom….”  
“Oh for fuck’s sake Zac….couldn’t you say something when we were still in there?” I said, instantly regretting my tone.  
“Sorry…you dragged me out of there before I had a chance to, you know!” he snapped.  
“Tay, what’s the matter?” Isaac said. “Jesse, wait one second”  
“He needs to pee. Do you think there might be a restroom that he can use back in the building?”  
“Yeah….probably” Jesse sighed “but…Zac, can you not hold it for a couple of minutes? We’ll find a café or something…”  
“No, I really have to go _now_.”  
“Look….you guys go back to the car, I’ll take him and then we’ll catch up with you, we won’t be long” I said.  
“Okay…but be as quick as you can, all right?”  
I couldn’t understand why Jesse was so keen to get away from the Census Offices, but it unnerved me. It was unlike him to be in such a rush.

As we re-entered the building I glanced around me for a sign to the restrooms, eventually deciding to ask the receptionist.  
“Just to the left of the public records waiting room.” the woman said, pointing to the wide corridor that lead to the office we had been in only minutes earlier. _Why couldn’t Zac speak up earlier_ , I thought, feeling strangely uneasy about retracing our steps. Zac clung awkwardly to my arm, struggling to keep up with my long strides as I guided him down the corridor, my eyes fixed on the green restroom sign that I could now see stick out of the wall.  
As I pushed the door open, I noticed with some relief that there was nobody else in. Since leaving the Compound, and whenever we’d had to use a public restroom, I had become acutely aware of how it looked when I accompanied Zac to the bathroom. It might not have been immediately obvious that he needed help, and I worried about getting into trouble. Mindful of our previous day’s encounter with the man at the diner, I found myself checking the door as I kept guard in front of the unlocked cubicle where Zac was emptying his bladder as noisily as it seemed humanly possible. Not only that - it was taking forever.

_Hurry up, Zac. How much did you drink today?_ I glanced at the door again.  
Finally the roar of the waterfall ended and the clanking noise of a belt being fastened signalled that Zac was done.  
“I was bursting” my brother grinned sheepishly as he re-emerged from the cubicle.  
“I figured” I sighed. “I might as well go too, as we’re here.” I had no idea where we were going next and the last thing I wanted was to have to ask Jesse to stop again.  
A couple of minutes later, we were once again walking down the same corridor, Zac’s hand - still wet - tightly gripping my my arm. There were no paper towels in the restrooms, only a electrical hand drier, and he had resolutely refused to use it. After what had happened the night before, I really couldn’t blame him.  
The door to the clerk’s office was partly open and as we walked past, I couldn’t resist peering inside once last time, knowing that all we needed was a yes, a few characters entered in the computer, a click of the mouse. As I furtively glanced into the office, something familiar half-registered in my mind, an image I had seen before but that I couldn’t quite place. The clerk was talking to someone - a man I knew from somewhere.  
I froze.  
“Why have we stopped?” Zac said.  
“Shhhhh!” I said, steering us into a blind spot, half shielded by the office door. “Keep quiet for a second.”  
I peered into the room again, trying to listen out to the conversation taking place between the clerk and the other man.  
 _That man. Where have I seen him? I have seen him before, I know I have_.  
They were talking in a low voice and I could only catch the odd word or sentence. “ _I didn’t know_ ”  the clerk said. “ _…utmost confidence….cannot be disclosed….. amply rewarded…._ ” said the other man in an unfamiliar voice.  
 _Where have I seen him? Where do I know him from?_ _If only I could ask Zac_. I forced myself to concentrate. There was nothing particularly striking in the man’s features - he could have been anyone. And that’s when it hit me. He was part of the landscape - part of _our landscape_ , and up until that moment he had blended into the background, a city background of cars, and sidewalks, of passers-by and footsteps crunching on the snow. It was the man in the black coat, the man whom we’d seen day after day when we walked to the park.

I grabbed Zac by the elbow and rushed out of the building as fast as I could.

\------

“I am telling you, Ike, it was him!” I said, turning to face the back seat.  
“But why would some random passer-by from the City be here, exactly in the same building where we are? It makes no sense.” Isaac said.  
“Taylor, you never mentioned this man before, are you saying that he was out every day when you went out walking?” Jesse’s flicked his eyes towards me for a second as he drove. “As in, was he _following_ you?”  
“No…I mean, yes, he was there every day, or most days anyway, but….I don’t…I don’t think he was following us. I mean, we saw him walk the same direction, you know?” I said, suddenly doubting ….everything.  
“Was he walking a dog?” Jesse asked.  
“No. No dog, I’m sure of that. I even tried to say hello a couple of times but he just blanked us and I remember thinking that maybe he thought I was weird for saying hello to strangers.” I said.  
“Are you absolutely sure it was him, Tay?” Isaac said.  
“Yes, I’m positive! It took me a while to figure out where I’d seen him, and then it clicked, you know? It was him!” I insisted.  
“This is just weird” Jesse muttered, almost to himself. He looked tense. “Fucking weird”  
“So, what do we do about it? It’s not as if we can go back there and ask him, “Sorry, were you the guy who we kept bumping into during our walks?” Isaac said.  
“I don’t know…but don’t you think it’s odd? I mean, we see this guy every day, and then we turn up at the Census office, and everything is going smoothly until the clerk changes his mind _all of a fucking sudden_ and then I see him the clerk’s office? Talking to him?” The more I thought about, the more the whole thing felt _wrong_.  
“Well, I know what we are _not_ going to do now.” Jesse said, turning off the satellite navigator on the dashboard. Then he picked up his mobile phone from the compartment in between our seats and turned it off, too.  
“What?” I asked. Jesse never turned off his phone. That was definitely a first.  
“We’re not going to stay at the hotel I booked. Change of plan.”  
“Why? Where are we going to stay?” Zac piped up from the back seat, anxiety already creeping up in his voice.  
Jesse pushed down on the accelerator.  
“Anywhere that takes cash.”

\-------------

Jesse drove on until we were well out of the city. I noticed that he was pushing down on the gas, driving faster than usual, just barely keeping to the speed limit that was posted at regular intervals on large signs by the side of the road.  
At the sign of a roadside motel, Jesse took the nearest exit and pulled into the car park.  
“Stay in the car until I’ve checked if they take cash” he said, turning off the engine.  
“Why wouldn’t they?” I asked.  
“You can’t do much without a credit card these days, Tay. Although cash has become more common again since the Exodus. Anyway, I’ll be right back. Lock the doors from the inside while I’m gone.”  
A few minutes later, Jesse was back. He walked over to the car and unlocked the door of the driver seat and leaned inside.  
“All good. We can set up camp now.”

We followed Jesse inside the motel. It didn’t seem as nice as the one where we’d stayed the night before - the carpets were faded and worn, and an artificial fragrance attempted to mask a lingering smell of stale cigarettes. A bored-looking clerk at the front desk barely said a word as he handed Jesse a form to sign.  
“Cash payments need to be settled upfront.” he said in a flat voice.  
“Of course.” Jesse said, counting several bills and putting them on the desk.  
It looked like a lot of money to me, but it probably wasn’t. I hardly ever saw Jesse use cash - he nearly always paid with a plastic card. The idea that money was just an electronic entity, stored in a computer somewhere, really worried me. What would happen if, one day, someone decided to just _delete_ your money? A piece of plastic card was useless by itself, and it left a footprint of everything you spent your money on - as Jesse had explained in the car. That’s why he had decided to change our plans at the last minute; he said that if he used his credit card, _they_ would know our movements. I’d asked what he meant by ‘they’, but he’d just said that we’d talk about it later.  
 _Who’s ‘they’?_  
 _Who are we running away from?_

\---  
Dinner was hamburgers and fries at a neighbourhood bar a few minutes’ walk from the motel. Apart from the odd curious glance from some of the patrons, nobody bothered us. But I was still on edge. We’d been away for less than two days but so much had happened that I felt as if we were on this endless, pointless journey littered with unsurmountable obstacles which someone was now clearly placing in front of us, for reasons I just couldn’t fathom. We’d gone over and over it, but it still seemed too far-fetched to think that someone would be actively try to stop us from finding our family.  
“Why would someone even be interested? Until a couple of months ago, we didn’t even exist, according to that government database” I said.  
“I don’t know, but think about it: Weathers’ computer geek should have had clearance to access pretty much _anything_ on that old computer system where he found your names, but even he couldn’t get past the initial records. Then your new I.D.s seem to have been wiped out from the system and we nearly get arrested. And then, just when you thought things couldn’t get any weirder, it turns out that some mystery man has been following you for weeks, and he’s just somehow told the Census clerk not to release your father’s DNA sample to us. I don’t know _why_ , but it seems pretty obvious to me that someone’s trying to stop you from finding your family.” Jesse said. He shook his head and took another swig of his beer. “Jesus Christ. I’m beginning to sound like some crazy conspiracy theorist.”  
“Have you considered that maybe …maybe it’s someone from the Compound?” Zac said without looking up from his drink.  
“Zac, we talked about this earlier…why….how? How would they even know where we are?” Isaac asked.  
Zac shrugged and took another sip from his drink . He had a look of concentration as he held the pink plastic straw tightly between his fingers.  Since we’d been living with Jesse, Zac had developed a taste for Coca~Cola and now he couldn’t get enough of the fizzy sugary drink. Recently, however, I’d noticed that Jesse had switched to a different type - still called _Coke_ , but _sugar and caffeine-free_. Zac had briefly protested that it tasted different, but had quickly gotten used to it.  
“Maybe it’s mom. She’s married to an officer, she might have contacts out here.” he said eventually.  
“I guess it’s possible, some officers come and go from the Compound whenever it suits them” I mused. “It still makes no sense why they’d try to stop us from finding …him.” I added.  
“No, it doesn’t make any fucking sense” Jesse said, finishing his beer. “This is all way too strange to make sense. I need something stronger.” he said, putting the bottle down on the table. “Do you guys want another drink? A proper drink..?”  
I looked down at my soda. I’d had a sip of Jesse’s beer a few weeks before but didn’t like the taste. Isaac, on the other hand, had ended up drinking a whole bottle all by himself. It’s not that I was completely new to alcohol: I’d tried liquor a few times, at the Club House. Officers had offered it to me on more than one occasion, whenever I had appeared too tense, too unwilling to partake in their sick little fantasies. Back then I’d appreciated the alcohol’s numbing effect, but I had also learned to distrust the way it clouded my judgement and made me feel more vulnerable - like a rag doll in the wrong hands. That’s why, unless I was really desperate, I always tried to get through the ordeal without it.  
“I’ll have one” Isaac said to Jesse’s offer.  
Surprised, I looked at my older brother. He really was learning to let go of all the self-restraint he had mastered almost to perfection over the years. _I thought I was supposed to be the reckless one_ , I thought, thinking back to all the risks I had taken, especially recently, back at Blue City with Dylan.  
“Make it two” I said.  
“Make it three” Zac said before taking one, long, last noisy sip at what was left of his soda.  
Minutes later, I felt myself relax for the first time since leaving the apartment.  One sip was all it had taken Zac to decide that the taste of bourbon spoiled his Coke, and Isaac and I had found ourselves sharing his glass. After that, Jesse called the waitress over to our table several times, or at least, it felt that way. I lost track of how many drinks I had - two, three, five? After a while, I stopped counting.

As the alcohol made its way into my bloodstream, the edges of the evening seemed to get blurrier, softer, and sounds weren’t so harsh anymore, the chatter from nearby tables appearing to fade in the background. Even the music, which up until that point had seemed too loud, now sounded less intrusive, almost muffled. It was a comfortable numbness, different from what I knew, unlike that helpless, drug-like stupor I remembered from those endless nights in a Club House bedroom. There were no predatory hands ripping off my clothes, nobody’s drunk breath forcing me to hold mine. There was no need to down the contents of a glass in order relax my body as quickly as possible to lessen the pain, to make it end quickly.  
 _There is nothing to be afraid now._  
I watched Jesse and my brothers talk and joke as if they had no care in the world - as if none of the strangeness that had marked our trip so far had even happened. As the tension of the day slowly dissipated, I noticed Isaac’s eyes linger on Zac a little longer than usual, and I felt his longing - a love that my older brother had never been able to express, but that he must have harboured inside for way too many years. I saw Zac look up and search the space around him every time our brother left the table to go and use the restroom; I saw how Zac’s eyes searched for him - how our younger brother suddenly looked like a little boy lost without Isaac’s solid, stedfast presence next to him. I felt a twinge of jealousy, but it didn’t last very long. _There’s enough space for all three of us_ , I thought. And I didn’t know if it was the liquor messing with me, but I suddenly saw us for what we really were - three of the same, like unborn triplets clinging to one another in the liquid warmth of the womb, floating together, blindly groping for each other with tiny but perfectly formed hands. We could only ever be _one_.

I didn’t need to think about it, once we got back to the motel. I whispered it in my older brother’s ear - my permission, my _sanctioning_. I saw surprise and doubt register on Isaac’s face. I saw gratitude. I squeezed his arm and kissed Zac goodnight, and followed Jesse into our room, and shut the door behind me.


	17. Given to Fly

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> POV: Isaac, Taylor, Zac (in that order)
> 
> Chapter Word Count: 4293
> 
> Please note: this is the final chapter of Book I.  
> Book II is already underway and up to Chapter 3. I will be posting those chapters here in the next few days.
> 
> Thank you for reading :)

When the door closed behind us, I took Zac by the hand and led him to the bathroom. It was the first thing that had come into my head, an automatic reaction from being so used to taking care of him. Yes, we were alone and we both knew why, but right at that moment all I could think about was to do what I had always done, to take care of my brother.  As I unbuttoned his shirt I could smell the cigarette smoke from the bar where we had spent last few hours: a different lifetime, as far as I was concerned. Now was the moment that I never thought would happen - the two of us together, without Taylor, our clothes discarded on the floor. His shirt, my shirt, the white t-shirt he insisted on wearing underneath even on warm days, my belt making a clang as it hit the tiled floor. We both knew where this was leading to, but we were awkward with each other, too self-conscious to speak.

Part of me wanted to run out of our room and bang on Taylor’s door, _come back, come back, I don’t know how to do this_ , but I was too weak to let go of Zac, and once my hands were gripping his bare skin, all I knew was that I had never wanted anything so much, so badly, and that _I had to know_ \- even if it was just this once, a blip into an otherwise perfect existence of _three_. I turned the hot water on and led him into the small shower cabin, and watched him gingerly step inside, feeling the metal frame with his toes, careful not to trip. It was a small space, barely sufficient for one, and when I stepped inside our bodies were uncomfortably pressed together. There was no chance of hiding our true feelings now, our intentions so clear under the running water. There was no doubt now that he wanted me as I much as I wanted him.

 _But not here, not yet_ , I told myself, gathering all my self-control to focus on washing my brother’s hair, trying to keep the foam off his face and away from his eyes - which were stubbornly open, even if all they could see was just a fixed point somewhere on my face. He held on to me, his hands tightly clasping my shoulders. I always wondered how my brother could hold a pencil or a paintbrush with those stubby, chunky fingers, let alone how he could produce such detailed, beautifully accurate drawings and paintings. How he could be so clumsy and yet so perfect. So perfect, I caught myself say under my breath, before I allowed myself to kiss him, tentatively first, breathing in his hesitation for a second or two, until I felt his response - equally tentative, equally dotted with questions, and doubt, and the baggage of a lifetime.

I turned off the water and opened the shower’s door. A cloud of steam fled the tiny world to which we had retreated, spreading inside the bathroom like a thick fog. I took two towels from the rack on the wall, wrapping one around my waist and placing the other around my brother’s shoulders. Zac waited patiently while I dried him off, even if we both knew he didn’t need my help. I couldn’t help stalling things for a little while longer as I wrapped a towel around his hair, squeezing the water out, patting it dry, repeating the action over and over, until my brother decided that he wouldn’t wait any longer. He put his hand over mine to stop me: it was time.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

 

“Tay? Tay?”  
A hand on my shoulder shook me out of my sleep. I opened my eyes.  
Jesse sat by the side of the bed, his face still not quite in focus.  
“I brought you some coffee.” he motioned at a large paper cup on the bedside table.  
Steam escaped from a hole in the lid, and the smell alone was enticing enough to make me sit up.  
“Oh…thanks” I said, reaching for the cup.  
Jesse’s hair hair was still damp, hanging over his face in thick, dark strands.  
“Have you been up long?”.  
“Just long enough to have a shower and grab a couple of coffees. I thought you might need one.” He gave me a slightly amused look.  
“I…yes….I feel a bit rough” I admitted. A piercing pain was tunnelling its way into my temple. ‘A bit rough’ was an understatement: I was feeling absolutely awful.  
“Thought you might. Take these.” he said, handing me two white tablets.  
I took them from his open palm and shoved them in my mouth, swallowing them with a sip of coffee.  
“Thanks. I guess I’m not used to drinking very much, am I…?” I asked, partly as excuse for my pathetic state but partly fishing for confirmation that I hadn’t done anything stupid the night before. I really couldn’t remember very much after saying goodnight to my brothers. Which worried me.

“I guess it’s safe to say that you’re not a seasoned drinker” Jesse said  
“Oh.” I tried to read his expression. “Did I…um…did I do anything stupid?” I might not have been the most experienced drinker, but I’d been around plenty of drunk officers and their alcohol-fuelled antics.  
Jesse chuckled.  
“Go on, say it, what did I do?” I insisted.  
“You didn’t do anything, you were just….well, you were asking a lot of questions last night.”  
“Really? What kind of questions?”  
“Oh, you know… _personal_ questions.” Jesse said as he looked down to examine the green logo printed on his coffee cup.  
 _Shit_.  
“You seemed to be very interested in my…let’s say _sentimental life_ ”.  
Maybe I vaguely remembered asking him about girlfriends. Or could it have been something…worse?  
Either way, I had to know.  
“Erm, maybe I remember asking you why you don’t have a girlfriend”… I chanced it.  
“Yes you did, amongst other things” Jesse nodded and finally looked up with a smirk.  
“What other things?”  
“Well…”  
“Well what?”  
“You also wanted to know if I’d ever…dated guys” Jesse’s face flushed a bright pink.  
“Oh. I …I don’t remember asking that.” I stammered. I genuinely didn’t remember that bit.

 _Oh great, that’s it. I’ve made a fool of myself. Just awesome_.

“You were pretty insistent you know? You wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer” Jesse was now staring right into my eyes, as if he was trying to figure something out.  
“No as in… you never dated a guy…? or ‘no’ as in, you didn’t want to talk about it?” I asked as casually as I could. I didn’t even recall asking him the question, but now I was desperate to know the answer.  
“See, you’re doing it again, and now you don’t even have the excuse of being drunk!”  
“Doing what?”  
“Not taking ‘no’ for an answer!”  
“Well, maybe, but I don’t remember what you said, and anyway, why can’t you tell me? You know all sorts of things about me but I can’t ask you one simple question? I mean, what’s the big deal anyway?” I silently congratulated myself for making such a good point. It really wasn’t fair.  
“It’s no big deal Taylor, I’m just enjoying winding you up, relax!”  
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to -“  
“As I told you last night” Jesse continued, interrupting my apology. “I had a girlfriend but we broke up last year. And no, I’ve never dated a guy. Are you happy now?”  
“Why did you and your girlfriend break up then?” I asked. I didn’t like the answer I’d just been given, but wasn’t quite sure why.  
“It’s kind of a long story….” Jesse looked down at his now empty cup.  
“Was she a doctor, too?”  
“Yeah.”  
“So what went wrong?”  
“She wanted different things from life, I guess.”  
“What do you mean?”  
“She was…very career driven, and all set on really making it, you know? Wanted to be Chief Medical Officer by 35…and expected me to want the same thing. She almost convinced me that that’s what I wanted too, actually”  
“But … you _have_ a career.” I said.  
“Not the right kind.” Jesse’s voice had a touch of bitterness that I hadn’t heard before.  
“What do you mean?”  
“Practising Emergency Medicine in a community hospital doesn’t exactly make you ideal husband material. She couldn’t understand why I wanted to do a job that didn’t pay big bucks, and in a hospital where most of the patients treated were charity cases.  It’s not exactly a path that raises your status within medical circles, really.”  
“But …she left you because of that?”  
“No.” Jesse got up and tossed his now empty cup into the waste paper basket. “I broke up with her. I’d had enough of being told what I should do, what I should want, what jobs I should apply for, what big shot I should suck up to at networking events, all that bullshit. That’s not what I spent years at medical school for. I wanted to become a doctor to help people, not to play who’s got the bigger plaque on their office door.”  
“Could you not…do both?”  
“Not really. When you’re sewing up stab wounds all day, the last thing you want to do in the evening is to stand around at functions hearing some arsehole boast about his handicap.”  
“Wh-“  
“It’s a golf thing.” Jesse cut me off. “Golf. It’s a sport. - Never mind. Anyway, we really should get going soon. I told Isaac to come and knock and the door when they were ready.”

_Isaac.  
Oh._

I had momentarily forgotten orchestrating for my brothers to be alone the night before. And now that the effect of the liquor had worn off, the thought of what may have happened between them, the mere possibility, made me feel sick.  
 _What if things have changed for good. What if Zac chooses Isaac over me?_  
I racked my brain for a possible explanation for my stupid idea other than the obvious fact that I was drunk at the time. I knew that deep down I had to let it happen; I’d known that since that time, a few weeks before. It had been easy, then, to give him my permission, caught as we all were in the moment. And I was there, and I guess I knew then that I could have put a stop to it at anytime. But when I’d closed the door behind me the night before, I had done more than giving them my permission, my sanctioning. I had encouraged them.  
There had always been an unspoken agreement between me and Zac: that he was mine, and mine only. That he was untouchable, _pure_ , untainted by anyone else’s touch. That unspoken contract was now, to all effects, void. It had seemed the right thing to do, but now I wasn’t so sure.

_Why did I do that?_

Maybe there was something else. A nagging feeling that I was refusing to consider but that was undoubtedly there, a persistent voice yelling in my head as the fuzziness of the night before quickly receded.  
It was also about Jesse.  
Who was I trying to fool? I wanted to spend the night with him - just the two of us, alone. Even admitting it to myself was a struggle. _He’s not one of us. He’s not an officer, he’s not a ‘john’ - as Dylan used to call our customers on the street. He’s not Zac, he’s not Isaac. And yet I could._  
I looked at him as he threw the few things he had unpacked the night before back into his duffel bag. His hair was almost dry now, back to its usual blond that looked sun bleached even in the middle of winter. It was the colour of my hair when I was younger. _He’s not one of us, but he could be._  
Still, something in the back of my mind bothered me.  
I had to know.

“Jesse?”  
“Huh?”  
“When you told me about your girlfriend last night… and about, hum, you know, the fact that you’d never ….been with a guy…”  
“Yes?”  he said, looking up at me.  
“What did I say to that?”  
“Does it matter?” Jesse zipped the bag shut in a slow, deliberate movement.  
“Yes, it does, to me” I said.  
“You really want to know? Because sometimes alcohol-induced amnesia can be a good thing, you know.” he joked.  
“Jesse, be serious for once, please?”  
“All right, all right. If you really want to know….”  
Judging from the smile that he was trying to suppress, Jesse was enjoying watching me suffer.  
“…you said that….” his words hung in the air for a few seconds, until he burst out laughing.  
“What the fuck, Jesse?”  
“You said nothing, mate. You passed out. I had to take your clothes off and put you under the covers” he laughed.  
I looked down at myself - I was sitting up in bed in nothing but my underwear and a t-shirt.  
And now, I remembered.

It all came back to me: Jesse helping me out of my clothes, how his eyes had widened when I told him. Yes, I actually told him what I had only just admitted to myself: I told him that I had never felt attracted to anyone other than Zac, until now. I remembered telling him that he was beautiful, different. I told him _it’s ok, because you’re one of us_.

And I remembered his gaze, fixed on mine, for a few seconds too long.

And after that, just sleep.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

It had been in my fantasies since that time when Jesse had decided to walk in on us. Since then I had been stuck in a suspended state of wanting. I had replayed that moment in my head over and over, re-living every second. I missed it. I wanted to feel Isaac’s desire for me again.  
In the beginning, it was like that with Taylor, but then, I guess, like with everything, he just got used to me. And although he still obviously wanted me and knew how to make me feel good, I missed that initial moment of _hunger_ , that tiniest sense of hesitation which, in the early days, seemed to define his every touch - as if he constantly asked himself if I really wanted that, if I was giving him my permission. Now there was no such unspoken question: I was _his_.

Now I had his permission to be Isaac’s. It was my chance and I was going to take it.

I could tell that my brother was stalling, massaging my hair with a towel until there couldn’t have been a drop of water left. I could imagine that look of concentration, mixed with worry, the eternal worry that always accompanied Isaac’s every living, breathing moment, mixed with doubt - even if, until minutes earlier, we had been naked together in the confined space of the shower. But I knew that my brother would still not believe it until he’d have me pinned down under his own weight, until I was unequivocally and unmistakably _his_. So I put my hand over his and stopped him. I sensed his hesitation again, only for a split second before it turned into resolve: finally, he guided me to the bedroom. I had expected him to push me down onto the bed, like Taylor would have done, but Isaac was moving slowly, in the careful, determined manner of someone preparing for some kind of ceremony. I heard him lift the bedspread and drop it onto the floor, where it fell with a heavy thud. It was followed by the rustling of bedding being shoved aside, and the duvet falling softly on itself like a pile of cotton wool.

Only when he had made space for me on the clean undersheet, did my brother put his hands on my shoulders - “Lie down”, he said. Then, as I lay flat on my back on the cool cotton, he slid his fingers under the flap of towel that was tucked into itself and around my waist, and slowly lifted each corner away from my body, as if to unwrap me. I felt his gaze on me, like a long, sweeping caress.  I made some feeble noises in protest - to make him hurry up. But I quickly realised that this was Isaac’s game now, complete with its own set of rules, unfamiliar but not unwelcome, and the mattress under me was my brother’s territory. Everything was so different - the way he climbed on top of me in slow, considerate movements, as if for fear of crushing me; his tentative, exploratory touch. How his breathing hitched as I ran my hand over his chest - so smooth, so different from Taylor’s. Now I was the one who was desperate, used as I was to Taylor’s style, his knowledge of every inch and secret spot on my body that guaranteed to elicit an immediate response from me. I was used to instant gratification, but Isaac had other ideas. He wasn’t going to rush it.

Maybe it was just what he was used to - after a long engagement with that girl back at the Compound, and possibly several more illicit, unsanctioned encounters that he’d never admitted to, but which had been a favourite reason for gossip between me and Taylor. Or maybe it was just Isaac’s nature - caring, considerate, always dogged by insecurity. Whatever the reason, my brother was handling me the way I imagined he handled his girlfriends - gently but steadily, firmly in charge, unwavering in his resolve to push me over the edge. I really was not prepared for that, and I was ready to let myself go before he had even properly started, as his fingers teased me in ways that I had forgotten were possible. That’s when he grabbed a handful of my hair and pulled, forcefully enough to hurt a little: “Wait.”

By the time he had pushed his way inside me I was a desperate, quivering wreck, frantically thrashing under the weight of his body to take in as much of him as I could, but he still refused to adapt to my pace, placing a hand on my hip to keep me still. I found myself begging him, one incoherent plead quickly followed by another, until I was sure he was smiling in that peculiar way I remembered, as if he had just made you an accomplice to some wicked deed and was inviting you to follow him down the long, winding road to perdition. Yes, I was sure he had that smile on his face as the pace of his thrusts changed from imperceptible to slow to a little faster, and then a little faster still, until his hand was no longer holding me in place and I was free to lose control completely and pull him closer, closing any real or imaginary gap between us, and then one more push was all I really needed to come undone and yet I still would not let go of my brother, and I held on to him long after we were both spent, shaking, shuddering, trying to wring out the last, tiniest drop of pleasure from the knotted, sticky sum of us, and still I didn’t want it to be over, and I knew that it could not possibly be the last time.

\---------

There was one last place to go before our long journey home. The ocean. Jesse had promised me, and although I could tell that he wanted to head home as soon as possible, I knew he wouldn’t let me down. We’d checked out of the motel in the morning, after the quick breakfast of coffee and doughnuts he’d brought to our room, and we’d got back on the road. I was tired, and craved the closeness I’d shared with Isaac only a few hours earlier. I stretched out on the back seat, resting my head on his lap. It didn’t take long before I felt his fingers running through my hair, while his hand rested on my chest. I tuned into the slowing rhythm of my heartbeat, knowing that Isaac was doing the same, and quickly fell asleep. I dozed like that for a while, dipping in and out of waking dreams, catching occasional fragments of conversation between Jesse and Taylor.

I woke up as soon as I felt the car slow down and sensed that we were about to stop.  
I opened my eyes, and looked up at the silhouette of my brother’s face above me.  
“Are we there?”  
“I think so.” he said.  
“That’s it, that’s the ocean, Zac” Taylor said excitedly from the front seat. “Come on, let’s go and take a look!”  
The passenger door slammed shut, followed by his hurried footsteps coming over to my side. He helped me out of the car, and placed my hand over his arm, like he always did. Without thinking, I searched around me for Isaac, turning to face him as I heard him walk towards us.  
“It’s ok if you want to go with Isaac, Zac.” Taylor said. Maybe I was imaging it, but I thought he sounded disappointed.  
I opened my mouth to say something, but Isaac put his hand on my shoulder and cut me off.  
“No need. You hold on to Taylor. I’m right here.”

We walked down a few steps and then I felt the ground change from concrete to sand. It was tricky to walk on it, and we soon stopped to take off our shoes. My feet sunk into the sand, and thought back to our afternoons wading in the foot-deep snow. This was nicer, much nicer, I thought, feeling the powdery soil between my toes. The sensory assault was overwhelming: the sharp, salty smell of the air, the breeze lightly slapping my face. And as we got closer and closer to the water’s edge, the crashing of the waves.

“Do you think we can go in the water?” I asked Jesse.  
“Not without a wetsuit, the water’s really cold at this time of the year.”  
“And none of us can swim, don’t forget” Isaac said.

For a split second, I felt a flicker of annoyance, the way I used to feel when we were children, when Isaac had to be the sensible one, the killjoy who always brought us back to reality at the most inopportune moment. But my irritation was swiftly washed away by the memory of the night before. After the way he’d made me feel, I was ready to forgive Isaac anything - his little tics and gestures, his sometimes pedantic manner. I had seen a very private side of him, and I’d been there when he’d momentarily lost control of himself - my brother, who was usually so restrained, so measured in everything he did. He sure did lose control, with me. The sounds he’d made, and which I kept replaying in my head. Even his meticulously styled hair had broken free, and his curls had tickled my face as he’d leaned over to kiss me, before he'd  finally collapsed on top of me in a pool of sweat.  
 _I’ve made Isaac lose control_ , I smiled to myself.  
 _We could all do with losing control now. We’ve had enough stupid rules to last us a lifetime._  
 _Now-_

I let go of Taylor’s arm and took a couple of steps away from my brothers, until the sand under my feet felt cold and damp. There was a brightness that almost hurt my eyes and I stared right into it, trying to make out what was in front of me. Shadows and lights, as usual, although I thought that this time the shadows were blue, like my favourite colour. Yes, I was almost certain I could see blue. Spray from the waves landed on me and felt like a calling. I unbuttoned my coat and took it off, dropping it on the sand, and before my brothers and Jesse had a chance to stop me, I’d also removed my shirt, unzipped my pants and dropped them to the ground. I stood there for a moment, shivering in my thin t-shirt and underwear. Isaac’s hand grabbed my arm but I shrugged it off and began to walk away from the three of them, ignoring their calls for me to stop, that it was cold, that I was being stupid. It only took a few steps until the sand begun to sink under my weight and waves lapped at my feet. I waded in further, holding my breath as I shuddered, my body turning rigid from the cold, and soon the water was up to my knees. Fingers dug on my shoulder to hold me back - probably Jesse’s. I pried them open with mine and before he could grab me again, I spread my arms out as wide as they would go and then I plunged forward, tucking my head down as my hands stretched out in front of me until my palms touched and then I took a deep breath in, seconds before my face hit the icy water and I thought my heart was going to stop.

The sea closed above my head and I let myself sink until my hands scraped the sandy floor, and then I let go, my arms and legs splayed out like a star, and held my breath for as long as I could until I felt like my lungs were going to burst. And when I came up for breath, the air on my skin felt almost warm, and gulls squawked in a colourless sky, and all around me was water.

 

**_END OF BOOK I_ **

 

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZKcmBJTVKI>

 

**Given To Fly**

 

Written and performed by Pearl Jam

 

He could've tuned in, tuned in

But he tuned out

A bad time, nothing could save him

Alone in a corridor, waiting, locked out

He got up outta there, ran for hundreds of miles

He made it to the ocean, had a smoke in a tree

The wind rose up, set him down on his knee

A wave came crashing like a fist to the jaw

Delivered him wings, "Hey, look at me now"

Arms wide open with the sea as his floor

Oh, power, oh

He's.. flying

Whole

High.. wide, oh

He floated back down 'cause he wanted to share

His key to the locks on the chains he saw everywhere

But first he was stripped and then he was stabbed

By faceless men, well, fuckers

He still stands

And he still gives his love, he just gives it away

The love he receives is the love that is saved

And sometimes is seen a strange spot in the sky

A human being that was given to fly

High.. flying

Oh, oh

High.. flying

Oh, oh

He's flying


End file.
